One of the men accused of supplying Iran with materials used in a deadly drone attack at a US military was arrested in Italy but released back to Iran over the weekend.
Mohammad Abedininajafabadi and Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi were arrested in December for their role in an Iranian drone strike on Tower 22, a base in Jordan that killed three United service members and injured over 40 others in January 2024.
The two men were arrested after FBI specialists who analyzed the drone traced its navigation system to an Iranian company operated by one of the defendants, who relied on parts and technology funneled into the country by his alleged co-conspirator, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors allege that Abedininajafabadi, who was also called Adedini in court documents, has deep connections to the Iranian government. They say his Tehran-based company manufactures navigation systems for the military drone program of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and that he conspired with Sadeghi to circumvent American export control laws, including through the creation of a front company in Switzerland, and procure sensitive technology into Iran.
“The U.S. Department of Justice is disappointed with the decision to revoke the provisional arrest of Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, which has resulted in Abedininajafabadi’s return to Iran. Abedininajafabadi remains charged in the District of Massachusetts with scheming to procure sensitive U.S. technology for use in Iran’s lethal drone attack program and with providing material support to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terrorist activities – activities that resulted in the deaths of three U.S. servicemembers in January 2024,” the Department of Justice said in a statement to Boston 25 News.
Sadeghi, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was arrested at his home in Natick last month, was due back in court Tuesday.
U.S. officials blamed the drone attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah.
Three Georgia soldiers — Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross — were killed in the Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. outpost in northeastern Jordan called Tower 22.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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