Italian investigative journalist Mary Pace filed a law suit in Rome against the U.S. Government and the Italian Interior Ministry for the $25 million dollar (20.2 million euros) bounty promised by the U.S. government to anyone who provided information leading to Osama bin Laden's capture or killing.
Carlo and Giorgio Taormina, Pace's lawyers, told ANSA that in August 2003, Pace revealed to the Italian authorities that a source told her that bin Ladin was "in Pakistan, in an area of 30 square kilometres between the cities of Wah, Gadwal, Samiwal, and Havelian, the latter being in the district of Abbotabad".
Following bin Laden's death in Abbotabad, Pakistan, on the 2nd of May 2011 during a special forces helicopter raid, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stated during a press conference that the U.S. government would not pay out the $25 million bounty because no one intentionally provided it with useful information.
If the Italian ministry neglected to pass her information on bin Laden's whereabouts to the Americans, Pace will hold the Italian ministry responsible for the missing compensation. There has been no statement from the U.S. government on the suit, which will begin hearings in Rome on the 13th of May, 2013.
For more than thirty years, Pace's investigative journalism has shed light on some of Italy's most mysterious crimes, including the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969, Carmine Pecorelli's murder in 1979 and the pursuit of Nazi fugitive Erik Priebke.
