Italy-Iran diplomatic tangle escalates over detained citizens as US seeks man over drone attack

ROME — Italy summoned Iran's ambassador on Thursday to demand the release of an Italian journalist while Tehran demanded Italy free an Iranian citizen arrested on a U.S. warrant over a drone attack in Jordan that killed three Americans a year ago.

The developments reflected an escalation in a sensitive, three-nation diplomatic tangle marked by a series of public barbs.

The complicated saga began on Dec. 16, when the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against two Iranian citizens accused of supplying the drone technology to Iran that was used in a January 2024 attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan that killed three American troops.

One of the suspects, Mohammad Abedini, was detained that day at Milan's Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant seeking his extradition.

Three days later, an Italian reporter for the Il Foglio daily, Cecilia Sala, was detained in Tehran. She had arrived in the country on Dec. 13 on a journalist visa and was arrested on charges of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the state-run IRNA news agency said.

The Italian and Iranian governments referred to both cases in their public statements Thursday after the Iranian ambassador was summoned to the Italian foreign ministry. That suggested the cases were very much intertwined as each country seeks the release of its citizen. Both say their detaineed national is being unjustly accused.

The Iranian Embassy to Italy described the meeting between Ambassador Mohammadreza Sabouri and the Italian foreign ministry's secretary general, Riccardo Guariglia, as friendly.

But in a statement on X, the embassy said Abedini was being held on ''false charges'' and demanded his release, in what was believed to be Tehran's first public response to the U.S. case against him.

It insisted that Sala was being treated humanely, especially in light of Christmas and New Year's holidays, and demanded similar treatment for Abedini.

''It is reciprocally expected from the Italian government that, in addition to expediting the release of the detained Iranian citizen, he will be provided with the things he needs,'' the statement said.

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged Abedini and a co-defendant with export control violations after FBI specialists analyzed the drone navigation system used in the Jordan attack and traced it to them. U.S. prosecutors said Abedini's Tehran-based company manufactures navigation systems for the military drone program of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Ever since the 1979 U.S. Embassy crisis in Iran, in which dozens of U.S. hostages spent 444 days in captivity in Tehran, Iran has frequently used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations.

Italian commentators have speculated that that is indeed the case as Tehran seeks Abedini's release by holding Sala, whose fate has dominated Italian headlines for days and even featured in President Sergio Mattarella's end-of-year speech to the nation.

The Italian foreign ministry said it summoned Sabouri, the Iranian ambassador, to demand Sala's release and ensure ''dignified detention conditions in full respect of human rights,'' including consular access and visitation.

Later in the day, Premier Giorgia Meloni convened a high-level meeting with the Italian justice and foreign ministers to discuss the Sala and Abedini cases, and met separately with Sala's mother. In a statement, Meloni's office said the government renewed its call for Sala's immediate release and ''treatment that respects human dignity'' in the meantime.

Concerning Abedini, the government reaffirmed that ''all are guaranteed equal treatment in compliance with Italian laws and international conventions.''

Abedini's Italian lawyer, Alfredo De Francesco, had asked the Milan court this week to grant him house arrest. On Thursday, Milan's general prosecutor Francesca Nanni argued against the request, saying Abedini was a flight risk — especially since the Iranian government owned the residence in Italy that was proposed to house him.

''The circumstances represented in the request, particularly the provision of an apartment and financial support from Iran's consulate … do not constitute an adequate guarantee against the danger of flight of the Iranian national whose extradition the U.S. has requested,'' the adnkronos news agency reported, citing a statement from Nanni that was confirmed by her office.

The U.S. Justice Department has declined to comment on the case.

Sala's mother, for her part, said she just wants her daughter to come home and be treated humanely by Iran in the meantime.

Speaking to reporters outside of Meloni's office after the meeting, Elisabetta Vernoni said her daughter had reported to her on Wednesday — their second phone call — that she was sleeping on the floor in a cell usually used to punish prisoners.

''I am a bit like Cecilia, I am a bit of a soldier. I wait and respect the work they are doing,'' Vernoni said.

''But prison conditions for a 29-year-old girl who has done nothing must be such that they cannot scar her for life,'' she added.