Iran Frees 6 Italians After Rome Allows Detained Freighter to Sail

Iran on Friday released six Italians who had been held at Tehran airport in apparent reprisal for the six-day detention of an Iranian freighter in the Italian port of Genoa, the Foreign Ministry announced.

A spokesman said Iranian authorities permitted the Italians to leave the airport for the Italian Embassy in Tehran pending arrangement of a flight to Rome for Christmas vacations.

Interior Minister Oscar Luigi Scalfaro said Iranian authorities gave no explanation for the detention of the Italians beyond a suggestion that it resulted from “checks on the transportation of drugs.”

But Italian newspapers Friday were unanimous in denouncing Iran for holding the Italians as “hostages” for the release of the ship.

Stowaway Sought Asylum

The tense diplomatic situation developed after dockers in Genoa refused to let a 12,000-ton container ship leave port pending clarification of the situation of an Iranian stowaway who requested political asylum in Italy.

Prime Minister Bettino Craxi ordered Genoa port authorities to let the freighter leave late Thursday on grounds its detention contravened a 1958 Geneva Convention covering the rights of ships in foreign ports.

Still aboard the vessel was Amir Albogino Beish Macksari, 22, who stowed away when the ship left the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in late November. Italian officials said Iranian authorities assured them that Macksari would be charged only with illegally boarding the vessel.

Requests by officials of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to board the ship to interview Macksari were rejected by the captain.

It was the second major diplomatic dispute between Italy and Iran in three weeks. On Nov. 27, Iran recalled its ambassador from Rome and expelled three Italian diplomats to protest an Italian television comedy program that lampooned Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.