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Sadeghi charged with violating US export control laws

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Prosecutors link Sadeghi to Iran's drone program via

Abedini

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Iran denies involvement, calls arrests a violation of

international law

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Dec 27 (Reuters) - A former engineer at a

semiconductor manufacturer pleaded not guilty on Friday to U.S.

charges that he illegally procured technology for an Iranian

firm that made a key component of a drone used in a January

attack by Iran-backed militants in Jordan that killed three U.S.

service members.

Mahdi Sadeghi, who was fired by Analog Devices ( ADI ) after his

Dec. 16 arrest, pleaded not guilty during a hearing in federal

court in Boston to charges that he engaged in a scheme to

violate U.S. export control and sanctions laws.

He entered the plea nearly two weeks after the U.S.

Department of Justice announced charges against the dual

U.S.-Iranian citizen and the head of an Iranian navigation

systems manufacturer, Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested in

Italy.

Prosecutors said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

was the primary customer of Abedini's company, San'at Danesh

Rahpooyan Aflak Co, which made the navigation system used in its

military drone program.

Prosecutors say that system was used in an unmanned drone that

struck a U.S. outpost in Jordan called Tower 22, near the Syrian

border, in an attack that killed three Army Reserve soldiers

from Georgia and injured 47 others.

The White House has said the attack was facilitated by the

Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of hardline

Iran-backed militant groups.

Iran has denied involvement in the attack, and its foreign

ministry was quoted in Iranian media on Saturday saying the

arrests of Sadeghi and Abedini, an Iranian citizen, violated

international law.

Prosecutors said that in 2016, Sadeghi, a resident of

Natick, Massachusetts, traveled to Iran to seek funding from a

governmental organization for a fitness wearables company that

he had co-founded.

Through an affiliated Iranian company he established,

Sadeghi began helping procure U.S.-origin electronic components

on behalf of Abedini, who is also known as Mohammad

Abedininajafabadi, prosecutors said.

After taking a job at Massachusetts-based Analog Devices ( ADI ) in

2019, Sadeghi helped a Switzerland front company for Abedini's

Iranian firm enter into a contract with Analog Devices ( ADI ), and

assisted Abedini in procuring U.S. technology, prosecutors said.

The electronic components Abedini obtained included the same

type used in the navigation system found in the drone,

prosecutors said.

Sadeghi has been detained since his arrest. U.S. Magistrate

Judge Donald Cabell set a Jan. 2 hearing to potentially grant

his release after a defense lawyer reported progress in talks

with prosecutors on acceptable bail conditions.