Reuters. Freed Italian journalist Cecilia Sala thanked the government as she arrived home on Wednesday (January 8) from Ciampino airport.
Sala was freed by Iran earlier on Wednesday and returned home, three weeks after she was detained in Tehran during a reporting trip.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani were on hand to greet the 29-year-old as she flew back into Rome, highlighting the political importance attached to her case.
Sala, a writer and podcaster, had been working with a regular journalist visa when she was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, accused of "violating the laws of the Islamic Republic."
She was held three days after Iranian businessman Mohammad Abedini was arrested in Milan on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2024 attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan.
Iran has denied involvement in last year's attack and had dismissed accusations that it imprisoned Sala to pressure Italy into release Abedini.
Abedini remained in a Milan prison on Wednesday, with a court due to decide next week on his request to be released to house arrest ahead of eventual proceedings to extradite him to the United States.
