Italian journalist Cecilia Sala has been released from prison in the Iranian capital Tehran. That reports Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Facebook on Wednesday. Sala is said to be on board a plane that left Tehran for Italy on Wednesday morning.
The 29-year-old journalist works for the Italian newspaper, among others Il Foglio and was in Tehran for work. She was supposed to fly back to Italy on December 20, but was arrested on December 19 for unclear reasons. She was locked up in an solitary cell in the infamous Evin prison, where foreign and political prisoners are often held.
No mattress
Her employer Il Foglio writes that Sala had no mattress in her cell, but was forced to sleep on the floor. According to the newspaper, the basic supplies that the Italian embassy had brought to her were also only delivered to Sala “after considerable delays”.
Sala’s arrest appears to be linked to the arrest of Iranian engineer Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi in Milan three days earlier. He was the subject of an extradition request from the United States: Abedini is said to have been involved in the supply of navigation technology to Iran. It was then said to have been used to kill three American soldiers in a drone attack in Jordan in January 2024.
Iran is said to have left it to Italy on January 3 know that the country would release Sala in exchange for Abedini. That same day, Italian Prime Minister Meloni paid a lightning visit to incoming US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. There would be Meloni and Trump according to Italian media discussed the matter and reached an ‘agreement’. In her Facebook post, Meloni wrote that the release was a result of “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels.”
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