Iranian citizen arrested in Milan on US extradition request, says Italian police

By Giovanni Legorano

ROME (AA) – A 38-year-old Iranian man Italian authorities detained while transiting through Milan’s airport is now being processed for extradition to the US, Italy’s police said Wednesday in a statement.

A US court has accused the man, whose name has not been disclosed, of conspiring to violate US international economic law and of supplying electrical components to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to build war drones, the police said.

They added that they found in the luggage of the detained individual “electronic components compatible with the crimes alleged by the US court, paper documents of investigative interest and three electronic devices.” The police seized all of these materials and documents.

The man now faces extradition to the US. An Italian appeals court will hear the case in the coming days.

He is now under so-called preventative detention in an Italian jail. Italian authorities can issue such a detention order if it deems there is a risk the person could leave the country, destroy evidence, or commit the same alleged crime again.