Italy's ambassador meeting Iranian authorities on Sala

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 3 - Italy's ambassador to Tehran is meeting officials at the Iranian foreign ministry on Friday to present Rome's demands for the release of 29-year-old Italian journalist Cecilia Sala and for dignified conditions until she is freed after her arrest last month.
    She was arrested on generic charges of breaking Islamic laws in the Iranian capital on December 16, three days after an Iranian engineer Mohammad Abedini was picked up at Milan's Malpensa Aiport on US charges of supplying drone parts used to kill three servicemen in Jordan a year ago.
    Tehran has requested the release of Abedini and it is suspected that Sala, an Il Foglio freelance correspondent and Chora News podcaster, is being held as a possible pawn for a potential prisoner exchange.
    Italian magistrates so far have refused to grant Abedini house arrest.
    Sala's family have said she is being held in isolation, has had her glasses taken away from her and is having to sleep in cold conditions on the ground with the lights on.
    Premier Giorgia Meloni on Thursday chaired a meeting of top Italian officials to discuss the case.
    "The Government confirms its commitment to the Iranian authorities for the immediate release of Cecilia Sala, and, pending this, for treatment that respects human dignity", the premier's office said in a statement.
    After the meeting Meloni received Sala's mother Elisabetta Vernoni, who paid tribute to the government's efforts to secure her release and acceptable detention conditions. (ANSA).