Investigation Over? This Italy-US Niger uranium story just gets stranger and stranger. From the New York Times:

...[Italian parliamentary] committee members said they were shown documents defending [Sismi director] General Pollari, including a copy of a classified letter from Robert S. Muller III, the director of the F.B.I., dated July 20, which praised Italy's cooperation with the bureau.

In Washington, an official at the bureau confirmed the substance of the letter, whose contents were first reported Tuesday in the leftist newspaper L'Unità. The letter stated that Italy's cooperation proved the bureau's theory that the false documents were produced and disseminated by one or more people for personal profit, and ruled out the possibility that the Italian service had intended to influence American policy, the newspaper said.

As a result, the letter said, according to both the F.B.I. official and L'Unità, the bureau had closed its investigation into the origin of the documents.

That L'Unita story ("Il Sismi si difende con l’Fbi", can't find a link) got some important facts wrong. (For instance, it said that Sismi had filmed me interviewing Martino, something I never did). I'm not sure this is the last word.

Posted by Laura at November 3, 2005 11:31 PM