Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni raised the case of detained Italian journalist Cecilia Sala during a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday, Italian media reported.
The New York Times reported that one person briefed on the meeting said Meloni had pressed aggressively for it.
While details of their talks were not officially disclosed, Meloni reportedly sought Trump's support on the issue, alongside discussions on Russia's war in Ukraine, trade, and the Middle East.
Newspaper journalist and podcaster Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on unspecified charges last month and placed in solitary confinement despite working in the country on a valid press pass.
Tehran made clear to Rome that the freedom of an Italian reporter detained in Iran depends on Italy's release of an Iranian arrested at Washington's behest, a source familiar with discussions between the journalist's family and the Italian government told Iran International.
Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, 38, was arrested by Italian authorities at the behest of the United States for his alleged role in providing technology used to kill three US soldiers in a drone attack in Jordan.
Iran, the source said, is prepared to free Sala “on humanitarian grounds" if the Italian government drops the extradition proceedings against Abedini and grants his release from Milan's brooding La Opera prison.
The Italian foreign ministry has demand Sala's “immediate release ... (and) full assurances regarding her conditions of detention.”
Sala told her family in New Year’s Day calls that her prescription glasses had been confiscated, her cell is barely longer than her own height and that she is forced to sleep on a blanket spread on the floor, according to Italian media.
