How This Cable Car In The Dolomites Hangs Over The Trial In Perugia
The Dolomites (image below) are a spectacular range of mountains east of the Alps in north-east Italy.
In 1998 a squadron of American Prowlers (image at bottom) based in Italy as part of the US NATO presence was roaring up and down those valleys, when one cut the cable of the cable car shown above. Twenty people in a gondola died when it crashed to the ground 350 feet below.
The US military has a huge presence in Italy (scroll down to “Conditions in Italy”) and good US-Italian relations are extremely important as a result. But in this case, the airmen were yanked back to the US, under NATO rules, tried by other military officers - and found not guilty of anything except destroying a videotape.
Outrage in Italy and across Europe and even in the US was intense. There have since been very, very few US interventions in any judicial process in Italy.
Now suddenly there is a new US intervention and Italian emotions are getting stoked.
If the FOA campaign ever thought the US government would spring Amanda using political pressure, they could not have picked a worse country in Europe to ridicule and try to strong-arm.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/24/09 at 04:07 PM in The judical timeline, The legal followups, Italian related, The wider contexts, Italian context, N America context
Comments
My boyfriend from Milan often brings this incident up. Another unfortunate (and rarely talked about) example of American accidents that are poorly, or not at all resolved is the Callipari shooting—which is incredibly hard to find reports of in english:
Posted by Autumn Stinar on 09/25/09 at 03:36 AM | #
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