Italy frees Iranian wanted by US for alleged illegal drone tech exports to Tehran
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Italy has decided to “revoke” the arrest of an Iranian engineer wanted by the US for alleged illegal exports of sophisticated technology, just days after Tehran freed an Italian journalist from its notorious Evin prison.
Mohammed Abedini, 38, was indicted in the US in December on multiple criminal charges stemming from his Switzerland-based company’s alleged supply of navigation systems for Iranian military drones, which were used in an attack that killed three US service personnel and injured 40 others in Jordan last year.
The businessman was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport in December and jailed, while awaiting extradition proceedings.
Italy’s justice minister Carlo Nordio filed a petition with the Milan Court of Appeal to “revoke the arrest” of Abedini, citing technicalities in the extradition treaty between the US and Italy, his ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Under Italian law, the court must abide by Nordio’s decision, a ministry spokesperson told the Financial Times.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed that Abedini — who through his Italian lawyer has always denied any wrongdoing — was “released and returning home”. Iranian state media said he had arrived in Tehran.
Baghaei extended his gratitude to “all parties involved” in the efforts that led to Abedini’s release, and said the Iranian foreign ministry would spare no effort in “supporting the rights of Iranian nationals abroad”.
Rome’s decision to free the Iranian engineer comes a week after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Mar-a-Lago to talk to US president-elect Donald Trump about the plight of Cecilia Sala, a 29-year-old Italian journalist who was arrested in Tehran just days after Abedini’s detention.
Tehran claimed that Sala — who had a valid journalist visa for Iran — was under investigation for unspecified violation of the Islamic republic’s laws, but her incarceration was widely seen in Italy as a bid to pressure Rome not to send Abedini to the US.
Meloni’s government had been under intense domestic political pressure to secure the release of Sala, who was freed from prison and returned to Italy on Wednesday, sparking national jubilation and an outpouring of accolades for the government.
“It was a complex work of diplomatic triangulation between Iran and the USA,” Meloni told journalists the day after Sala’s return.
Though Rome and Tehran have both publicly denied any connection between the fates of Sala and Abedini, Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome’s Institute of International Affairs, said Abedini’s imminent release was obvious the minute that Sala returned.
“Everyone knew it was going to happen the minute she was released,” Tocci said, adding that Meloni had likely secured Trump’s blessing for such an exchange. “Italy did this because it had a greenlight from Trump,” she said.
In his court petition, Nordio wrote that under the US-Italy extradition treaty “only crimes that are punishable according to the laws of both sides can lead to extradition, a condition which, based on the state of the documents, cannot be considered to exist”.
The petition said US authorities wanted to try Abedini for violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a US federal law that “did not correspond to any conduct recognised by Italian law as a crime”.
In a statement last month, US prosecutors alleged that Abedini had conspired with Mahdi Mohammad Sadegh, a dual US-Iranian national employed by a Massachusetts-based microelectronics manufacturer, to evade export controls and send US-origin technology and services to Iran for use in drones and other weapons systems. Sadegh was arrested in the US.
Additional reporting by Bita Ghaffari
