Detained engineer back in Tehran as 'misunderstanding' resolved, Iran says

ROME — Italian and Iranian intelligence services had resolved all "misunderstanding" in the case of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, the Italian-Swiss engineer freed Sunday after nearly a month of detention in Milan, Iran's foreign ministry said.
Milan police arrested Abedini at Malpensa Airport Dec. 16, after a United States federal court issued an international arrest warrant for the 38-year-old engineer.
Accused in the warrant of supplying weapons parts for a drone attack which killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan in 2024, Abedini's possible extradition to the United States became a flashpoint in negotiations to free Cecilia Sala, the Italian journalist detained in Tehran on unspecified charges on Dec. 19.
Sala returned to Rome on January 8. Three days later, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio rejected America's extradition request and ordered Abedini freed. One of the three charges against the Iranian engineer had no basis in Italian law, he said. And he said that the United States had failed to provide enough evidence to substantiate Abedini's other two charges, both related to cooperation with a terrorist group.
Abedini's lawyer, Alfredo De Francesco, said his client was "happy and serene" to be back home in Tehran, La Stampa reported. But a number of Abedini's belongings seized at Malpensa — his passport, cell phone, laptop, USBs, tablet, and hard drives — remain in a safe in Milan's Palazzo di Giustizia. U.S. intelligence believes that one of the hard drives contains plans for a dirty bomb, La Stampa reported, and is angling for an Italian handover.
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