Giffords feared being shot at public event, says husband

Gabrielle Giffords, the US congresswoman injured in the Arizona shooting, had lived in fear of being shot but refused to cut back public appearances because of her sense of duty, her astronaut husband has revealed.

Mark Kelly, a Nasa space shuttle commander, said his wife had frequently voiced concerns about her safety, including just two weeks before the Tucson attack.

"She'd received death threats before … just part of what we've been dealing with for the last year," he said in a TV interview. "She says, 'You know, some day I'm really worried somebody's going to come up to me at one of these events with a gun.'"

And speaking to local media at the Tucson hospital where Ms Giffords is recovering, he spoke of how his wife tolerated sometimes aggressive confrontations from constituents. He said: "She'd say, 'Hey, people have the right to tell me what they think ... that's part of democracy."

A bullet passed through the left side of Ms Giffords's brain, but she has astonished doctors with her progress, showing signs that she comprehends instructions and recognises loved ones.

Asked about the extent to which she will recover, Mr Kelly said her doctors "have not ruled anything out", joking that he has set her tough targets, including to be walking within a fortnight.

But he added: "At times I'm 100 per cent confident that she's going to make a 100 per cent recovery. And, you know, at other times I don't know."

Ms Giffords was shot when Jared Loughner, 22, opened fire during a public meet-and-greet session outside a Tucson supermarket on 8 January. Six people were killed and 14 injured.

The FBI said yesterday it has CCTV footage showing Loughner's attack, which reveals how John Roll, 63, a federal judge, died after pushing another man to the ground to save him.

Also killed were Gabe Zimmerman, Ms Giffords's director of community outreach, and Christina Taylor-Green, nine, who had gone with a neighbour to see Ms Giffords, because she wanted to be a politician one day.

Mr Kelly said that he dreaded having to tell his wife about the people who had died. He said: "How do I explain to her that this nine-year-old girl that was standing in front of you, looking up to you… now she's gone?"

Minutes before Christina was killed, her neighbour, Susan Hileman, 58, had told her: "Someday, you could grow up to be like Gabrielle Giffords."

Mr Kelly was in Houston when he got a telephone call telling him his wife had been shot. A friend loaned a private jet to fly him to Tucson. On the journey, he turned on the television and saw an erroneous headline saying that she had died. "I just walked into the bathroom, and broke down," he recalled.

In the days since the shooting, he has sat by his wife's bedside reading aloud some of the thousands of messages from well-wishers.One schoolboy taped his $2.85 lunch money to a Get Well card, thinking it might somehow help, and a military veteran came to the hospital to leave his Purple Heart - awarded to those wounded in action - for the congresswoman.

Mr Kelly said that he did not blame America's heated political climate for the shooting, as some have done, but said it was nevertheless an opportunity to "make things better".

He added that he would prefer his wife did not return to her congressional career, but said: "I think she's such a devoted public servant that she's going to come out of this and be more resolved to fix things."