by Giovanni Giacalone
The Sala-Abedini negotiation fiasco, certainly not a “diplomatic success” for Italy
Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi (38), the Iranian engineer arrested on December 16th in Milan on US request was released shortly after 9 am on Sunday January 12th, 2025, at the request of the Italian Minister of Justice, Caro Nordio. The judges of Milan’s Appeal Court, who were set to decide on Abedini’s house arrest request this coming Wednesday, therefore had to proceed with Abedini’s release, since the final word in any case belonged to the Minister. Abedini was later flown back to Iran.
While the decision is clearly political, the Italian Interior Minister provided two main technical reasons to back the release of the Iranian engineer: one of the crimes Abedini is accused of – “criminal conspiracy to violate the Ieepa (the law on economic powers in the event of an international emergency)”, is not foreseen in Italy: the American law refers to the US federal law, which gives the US president the power to identify any threat originating outside the United States. Furthermore, the other two hypotheses of crime, according to which the engineer with his Swiss drone company supported the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (included by the US among the terrorist organizations), were not confirmed.
In addition, the IRGC are not blacklisted as a terrorist organization in Italy.
In short, for the investigators, there is a lack of evidence. Satisfaction was expressed by Tehran, which praised “the cooperation of all interested parties”. It was a “misunderstanding” – according to the official agency of the Iranian judiciary, Mizan – but the “problem was resolved thanks to the follow-up given by the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the negotiations between the intelligence of the Islamic Republic and the Italian secret services”, as written by the Italian press agency Ansa.
Abedini’s release comes just five days after the release of the Italian reporter Cecilia Sala (29), detained by the Iranian regime on December 19th, just three days after Abedini’s arrest. Sala had arrived in Teheran on December 12th to conduct a series of interviews and was supposed to fly back to Rome on December 20th.
The US pursued Abedini’s extradition
The United States forwarded the extradition request on December 28th, while more documentation was yet to arrive from Washington. However, Italy decided to release him, most likely after consultation with the US.
As indicated in the December 16th press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Abedini and an Iranian-American business associate, Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, who was arrested in Massachusetts, have been charged with conspiring to export sophisticated electronic components from the United States to Iran in violation of U.S. export control and sanctions laws.
Abedini is also charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which resulted in the deaths of U.S. military personnel after a drone strike on Jan. 28, 2024, on the Tower 22 outpost in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and injured more than 40 others. According to the FBI, the attack was carried out by Tehran-backed militias and was equipped with a navigation system produced by Abedini’s company, San’at Danesh Rahpooyan Aflak (SDRA).
The cases of Abedini and Sala are connected
The objective of Cecilia Sala’s detention was clear: to pressure Italy to release Abedini in exchange for her. It’s a classic of the Iranian regime’s well known “hostage diplomacy”, as well explained by Prof. Adrian Calamel, an Iran expert and a Terrorism Fellow at the Arabian Peninsula Institute:
“Tehran’s tactics have been categorized or defined as hostage diplomacy when in fact it is pure terrorism. The strategy has been quite simple, while the world plays inside the diplomatic sandbox the regime is playing outside, nabbing innocent people to be used as bargaining chips for billions of dollars or to spring a regime operative from arrest, extradition and imprisonment, the case with Cecilia Sala is no different”.
Iran’s goal had even been confirmed by a statement of its own embassy in Rome posted on X on January 2nd 2025 and reported by the Italian news site Il Sussidiario: “Iranian ambassador confirms link between Sala and Abedini arrests”.
On January 13th 2025, well-known journalist and war correspondent Fausto Biloslavo, confirmed the deal in an article for the newspaper Il Giornale, indicating it as a “deferred exchange” that reflects Italy’s national interest in bringing home safe and sound a journalist, used as a “hostage”.
However, it is interesting to notice how some within the Italian government, the political arena and the media, attempted to present the two cases as unconnected. For instance, on the day of Sala’s release, the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, backed this version and stated: “The Iranians themselves have separated the two things”, quoting a sudden change of position by the Iranian regime on January 6th, when it claimed that Sala’s arrest was unrelated to Abedini’s case as the Italian reporter was accused of violating Iranian Islamic laws.
On January 10th, in a short interview published in an article by the Italian newspaper “Il Giornale” and entitled: “Sala’s release is a success of irregular diplomacy”, former ambassador and former intelligence director, Giampiero Massolo, also stated:
“And I think it is important to underline that there was no contextuality between the extradition of the Iranian engineer and the liberation of Cecilia Sala”.
Did Trump give a green light to Meloni for the exchange?
One point that needs to be addressed is the media narrative being spread regarding Trump’s authorization to cut the Sala/Abedini deal. Did that really happen? Is that why Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni, flew to Mar a Lago on January 4th? To ask for Trump’s go ahead for the Sala/Abedini exchange? Or was the negotiation already allowed by the Biden administration, which is still up and running until January 20th?
As explained by the Washington Outsider director, Irina Tsukerman:
“The US has only one president at a time. Until January 20th Trump carries no official authority with the US government, and only the Biden administration has a formal authority on foreign policy, treaties, deals, or overt or covert agreements or moves of any sort. That is why anything Trump says now or that others claim to be said or is stated on his behalf is only as good as his commitment to following through on these terms after inauguration. In other words, if on January 20th, upon taking oath of office, the new President decides to reverse all the promises he made to foreign leaders or domestic counterparts and go turn 180°, he will be fully within his rights to do so”.
The issue does not end here, because in an article published by Corriere della Sera on December 29th, an anonymous official from the current Biden administration is interviewed on the Sala-Abedini case and he made some interesting statements:
1- “We (the USA) will not withdraw it (the extradition request, ed.)… The best way for Italy is to find a way to make an agreement before the extradition is honored”.
2- “Italy can argue that it is acting in the name of what is right for the country and for its national interest”.
3- “When someone is arrested, there is a moment when you can intervene, when the person is not yet completely wrapped up in the judicial system”.
4- “If you let this man go (Abedini, ed.) or find a mechanism, or deny extradition to the USA… we need to start organizing it as quickly as possible and out of the public eye. In the past, Iranians have been good at keeping these things quiet.”
In short, perhaps it is more realistic that the Italian government negotiated the issue with the Biden Administration and that Meloni’s trip to Florida was more of a courtesy gesture towards Trump, to try not to irritate him excessively, seeking his consensus, given that in about ten days he will be the one to take over the White House.
Meloni was shrewd in inserting herself into a window of time between a U.S. administration change to negotiate with the Iranian regime. A move that paid off in the short term but could have long-term repercussions if the regime in Teheran were to fall.
Sala’s release is no diplomatic success
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, described a “diplomatic triangulation” with Iran and the US as being key to securing Sala’s release, confirming for the first time that Washington’s interests entered into the negotiations.
It is interesting to notice how, after Sala’s release, the Italian government, the political arena and a large portion of the media attempted to present the outcome as a great diplomatic success of the government and the intelligence apparatus, with very few daring to criticize it.
Humanely speaking, it’s indeed great to see Cecilia Sala free and far away from the claws of the Iranian regime, but the whole issue is way far from a success and rather a simple exchange with a terrorist regime who had taken a journalist as a hostage to free Abedini.
From a strategic perspective, the whole Abedini/Sala issue seems to be a fiasco from its early stages.
Firstly, as explained by former Italian foreign intelligence deputy chief, Marco Mancini, in an interview with the newspaper Il Riformista, the Italian foreign intel had two days to contact Sala and have her evacuated from Iran; the operation could have been accomplished in a few hours, however, that did not happen.
Secondly, why didn’t the Italian government make sure to make sure that no potential Italian targets were in Iran before proceeding with the arrest? Was the government even aware of the imminent arrest of Abedini, which was conducted by the Italian State Police in Milan’s Malpensa airport on an FBI request? According to Mancini’s interview, the US may have bypassed the Italian intelligence; if this was the case, why would that have occurred?
It must also be considered that such negotiations have the effect of encouraging the so-called Iranian “hostage diplomacy”, that is, the kidnapping of people to be used as bargaining chips for billions of dollars or to get an agent of the regime out of arrest, extradition and detention.
The policy line of “not dealing with terrorists” is not an ideological position, it is actually very practical since negotiating puts at risk the safety of other citizens abroad, who could become targets of the Iranians and their proxies.
Italy also risks losing further credibility after the case of Artem Uss, a Russian citizen on whom the US extradition request was pending, and who escaped from house arrest in Milan in early 2023.
What exactly is the so-called and previously quoted “irregular diplomacy”? Perhaps it’s just another way to name negotiations when people are kidnapped by the Iranian regime? A response term for “hostage diplomacy”? One thing is for sure, the matter was resolved very quickly compared to other cases; it took less than 30 days.
TIMELINE
December 12th: Cecilia Sala departs Italy for Iran;
December 16th: Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi is arrested in Milan;
December 19th : Cecilia Sala is apprehended by the Iranian regime in Teheran:
December 28th : The US forward a first extradition request to Italy;
December 29th: An unidentified US State Department official releases an interview to newspaper Corriere della Sera suggesting to the Italians an underground negotiation with the Iranians.
January 2nd : The Iranian Embassy tweets about the Abedini/Sala reciprocity:
January 4th: The Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni, flies to Mar a Lago to speak with Donald Trump:
January 6th: The Iranian regime changes version and claims that the Abedini case is not connected to Sala;
January 8th: Cecilia Sala is released and Italian FM, Antonio Tajani, also claims that the Abedini case is not connected to Sala’s arrest;
January 12th: Italian JM, Carlo Nordio, orders Abedini’s release. He is flown back to Iran.