Italy's ambassador to Tehran is
meeting officials at the Iranian foreign ministry on Friday to
present Rome's demands for the release of 29-year-old Italian
journalist Cecilia Sala and for dignified conditions until she
is freed after her arrest last month.
She was arrested on generic charges of breaking Islamic laws in
the Iranian capital on December 16, three days after an Iranian
engineer Mohammad Abedini was picked up at Milan's Malpensa
Aiport on US charges of supplying drone parts used to kill three
servicemen in Jordan a year ago.
Tehran has requested the release of Abedini and it is suspected
that Sala, an Il Foglio freelance correspondent and Chora News
podcaster, is being held as a possible pawn for a potential
prisoner exchange.
Italian magistrates so far have refused to grant Abedini house
arrest.
Sala's family have said she is being held in isolation, has had
her glasses taken away from her and is having to sleep in cold
conditions on the ground with the lights on.
Premier Giorgia Meloni on Thursday chaired a meeting of top
Italian officials to discuss the case.
"The Government confirms its commitment to the Iranian
authorities for the immediate release of Cecilia Sala, and,
pending this, for treatment that respects human dignity", the
premier's office said in a statement.
After the meeting Meloni received Sala's mother Elisabetta
Vernoni, who paid tribute to the government's efforts to secure
her release and acceptable detention conditions.
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