The kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors on Friday but wounded by US soldiers gunfire in Baghdad, reports said.

Sgrena was released in the Iraqi capital after being held hostage for a month, Qatar-based al-Jazeera television reported.

But US forces in Iraq mistakenly opened fire on the car carrying her to safety, wounding her in the shoulder and killing an Italian secret service agent.

Sgrena, a reporter of Rome-based Communist daily Il Manifesto, is receiving treatment in a Baghdad hospital.

The 56-year-old woman was seized by unknown gunmen on a Baghdad street on Feb. 4. She appeared on TV two weeks later, pleading for her life and calling for withdrawal of Italian forces from Iraq.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2005)