1 of 2 | Italian journalist Cecila Sala was released Wednesday after she was arrested while reporting in Iran on Dec. 19. File Photo by Mourad Balti Touati/EPA-EFE
Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was on a plane home Wednesday after being freed from an Iranian prison, the result of tireless diplomatic lobbying behind the scenes, the Italian government said.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who personally phoned Sala’s parents to give them the news, extended her deepest thanks to all those who helped bring about her release, the Chigi Palace said in a statement. Advertisement
“An aircraft bringing Italian journalist Cecilia Sala home departed from Tehran a few minutes ago. Thanks to intense work involving diplomatic and intelligence channels, our fellow citizen has been released by the Iranian authorities and is on her way back to Italy,” the statement read.
Sala’s flight was due to touch down in Rome at 3:30 p.m local time Wednesday, the not-for-profit ANSA news agency reported.
Italian External Intelligence and Security Agency director General Giovanni Caravelli was on board the flight, having flown to Tehran to collect Sala.
Sala, 29, was detained Dec. 19 a week after arriving in Iran on assignment and accused of breaking “the law of the Islamic Republic.”
Her arrest coincided with the Italian authorities’ detention of Iranian national Mohammad Abedini executing a U.S. warrant that alleged he was involved in shipping parts for drones to Iran — but Tehran has strongly denied that the cases were connected. Advertisement
“These two matters are entirely unrelated,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday.
However, an Italian official was quoted by Italian media as saying that Tehran was using Sala as a “political” pawn.
Abedini is due to appear in court in Milan on Jan. 15.
Sala’s release was being seen as a major coup for Meloni’s right-wing administration and came after a high-profile visit with President-elect Donald Trump at the weekend at which Sala’s detention was raised.
In October, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment accusing a high-ranking Iranian military officer of crimes, including a murder-for-hire plot against an unnamed female journalist who is a U.S. citizen.
“The Justice Department has now charged eight individuals, including an Iranian military official, for their efforts to silence and kill a U.S. citizen because of her criticism of the Iranian regime,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
The superseding indictment alleges Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, ran the murder-for-hire plot as well as money laundering and evasion of sanctions schemes.
Bazghandi and the others indicted remain in Iran, beyond the reach of U.S. authorities Advertisement
Justice Department officials said at the time that Iran was “actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies living in countries around the world for kidnapping and/or execution.”
