Italy working to save Iranian scholar from execution

Rome, Oct 24 (IANS/AKI) Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano spoke with his country's ambassador in Tehran after an Iranian researcher affiliated with a university in Italy, Ahmadreza Djalali, was sentenced to death for spying.

"I will see our ambassador in Iran in the next few days. I have just spoken to him and we will not cease to bring up the issue with the Iranians," Alfano said on Monday.

"We have repeatedly raised the case - at diplomatic level through our ambassador and at government level through the Italian Foreign Ministry," Alfano said.

Djalali was sentenced to death on Saturday by an Iranian revolutionary court for spying for Israel, according to Djalali's wife Vida Mehrannia and Italian diplomatic sources. They say he has 20 days to appeal against the sentence.

Djalali is affiliated with the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. A Swedish resident, he was arrested in April last year during an academic visit to Tehran.

He works on improving hospitals' emergency responses to armed terrorism and radiological, chemical and biological threats.

--IANS/AKI

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