Italy released an Iranian businessman Sunday whom officials detained last month over his alleged involvement in an attack that killed three American service members in Jordan last year.
Mohammad Abedini, 38, was arrested in Milan, and the United States requested his extradition after the U.S. Justice Department charged him and Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi with conspiring to export sophisticated electronic components to Iran in violation of U.S. export control and sanctions laws.
Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio made a request to the Milan Court of Appeal to cancel Abedini’s arrest, saying he could not be extradited to the U.S. because “only crimes punishable under the laws of both (countries)” can result in extradition.
Iranian Foreign Ministry officials said Abedini returned to Iran on Sunday. He was arrested on Dec. 16, 2024, and three days later, Iran arrested an Italian journalist named Cecilia Sala, who was freed last week. There is speculation that their releases were part of a deal, but it has not been confirmed.
Sala was accused of “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iranian-backed militias began firing rockets and missiles at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria in the fall of 2023, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. They carried out more than 180 of these attacks. One of the attacks targeted a small U.S. military post in Jordan, and the drone attack killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 others.
The three soldiers killed were Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett.
“The Justice Department has charged, and our foreign partners have taken into custody, Mohammad Abedini, who we allege supplied sensitive technology used by the Iranian military to kill three American servicemembers in Jordan earlier this year,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time of Abedini’s arrest.
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The drone used in the Jan. 28, 2024, attack on Tower 22, the small U.S. base in Jordan, was recovered. It allegedly used the Sepehr Navigation System, which was manufactured by Abedini’s company, San’at Danesh Rahpooyan Aflak.
“This case reflects our commitment to pursuing those who unlawfully aid Iran’s military drone program and to seeking justice for the U.S. servicemembers killed at the hands of the IRGC-backed militants earlier this year,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.