Engineer Denies Charges in Iran-Linked Deadly Drone Strike Case

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (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 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 in 2019, Sadeghi helped a Switzerland front company for Abedini's Iranian firm enter into a contract with Analog Devices, 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.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Rod Nickel)