Italy applies to court to revoke the arrest of an Iranian engineer who was arrested in Milan just three days before Iran arrested the journalist Cecilia Sala.
Iranian engineer Abedini Najafabadi Mohammad was arrested on 16 December by the Italian authorities at Milan Malpensa airport under a US warrant.
And on Saturday Justice Minister Carlo Nordio filed a request to revoke his arrest with the Milan Court of Appeal.
It comes as the court is due to decide whether to extradite Abedini to the United States at a hearing on Wednesday. However, even if the court were to order his extradition, Nordio has the power to reject it and keep him in Italy.
Many political commentators believe a deal may have been struck whereby Italy promised not to extradite Abedini if Iran would release the Italian journalist Cecilia Sala from prison, which Tehran did last week.
Commentators also point to a recent visit by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
However, neither the United States, nor Italy, nor Iran have confirmed whether a deal was in fact struck.
The connection between the Abedini case and Cecilia Sala’s arrest
The US Justice Department accuses Abedini, along with another Iranian citizen, of supplying Iran with drone technology used in the January 2024 attack on a US outpost in Jordan, which killed three American soldiers.
Three days after his arrest Cecilia Sala, a freelance journalist with Il Foglio newspaper and Chora Media, was arrested in Tehran on charges of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic. After 21 days of imprisonment in Evin prison, Sala was freed and returned to Italy on Wednesday 8 January.
