Cecilia Sala is at home.
After three weeks of anguish for her family and feverish negotiations by diplomacy and the Italian government, the nightmare of the reporter for Il Foglio and author of podcasts for Chora Media is over . She was detained in the political prisoners' prison of Evin , in Iran, for 21 days, without even a bed to sleep on, following an arrest triggered by a generic accusation of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic.
Dark pants and T-shirt, green jacket, backpack on her shoulders, Sala got off the plane that took off from Tehran and landed at Ciampino alone. Then she hugged her partner and Post reporter Daniele Raineri : he was the one who took one of the first photos, which shows a smiling Sala , with her glasses hanging from her collar, while she greets the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who welcomed her at Ciampino together with her parents . In the background, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and the Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri.
" Dad, I love you, this parenthesis is finally over ," she said, hugging her father Renato at the airport. "Hi, I'm back," is the short voice message she sent to her colleagues at Chora Media.
As seen in a video released by Palazzo Chigi, the journalist thanked the prime minister by bringing her hands to her chest, and then clasping them together. Meloni put her hands on her shoulders and reassured her: "Don't say anything, now you just have to stay calm, okay? I'm here to thank you and to tell you that you were strong." The prime minister also posted a photo on her social media profiles with the comment: "Welcome back Cecilia."
"I am very happy," commented her mother Elisabetta Vernoni, who a few hours ago received a phone call from the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella , who also called to congratulate Meloni. The journalist remained in Ciampino for a long time, listened to by the Carabinieri of the ROS for three hours in the airport premises, before being able to return to her Roman home in the evening. "I thank everyone. I thank the government, and everyone who got me out," she told reporters from the car.
This morning the announcement of her release was a surprise, when the plane had already taken off. Throughout the night Meloni followed the updates in real time from the situation room set up in the offices of the Secret Services. Then, when the plane carrying Cecilia Sala finally took off from Teheran in the early morning, she called her parents: "She's free, she's returning to Italy" together with the head of AISE Giovanni Caravelli, who went to pick her up personally in Iran.
Meloni's blitz in Florida was crucial, from where she returned - as the Wall Street Journal also reconstructs - with the reassurance that the new US president Donald Trump would have understood an Italian rejection of the extradition of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi , the Iranian engineer arrested last December 16 in Italy at the request of the United States . The release could take place in the next few hours, even if Tehran has denied that Sala was used by Iran as a bargaining chip to obtain the engineer's release.
Attorney General Francesca Nanni remains cautious : there is "no news at the moment" on the case of the 38-year-old engineer, now there is "only great satisfaction" for the journalist's release.
(Unioneonline/D)