Italy's government tracks the cases of all citizens detained in other countries and has been instrumental in helping obtain their release from jail, according to foreign minister Antonio Tajani.
"The Italian government follows all Italian detainees abroad," Tajani told private TV network Rete4's 'Right and Wrong' programme late on Thursday.
"We intervened on the detention conditions of Ilaria Salis," Tajani said, citing the case of an anti-fascist primary school teacher who this week was transferred to house arrest in Hungary pending her trial for the assault of several neo-Nazis at an event in Budapest in February 2023.
"In the same way, we brought Chico Forti home," Tajani continued, referring to a 65-year-old who was jailed for life for a 1998 murder in the United States and who was transferred to an Italian prison last week pending his expected transfer to house arrest.
"We have followed the cases of many Italians without political bias," said Tajani.
Coptic rights researcher Patrick Zaki would still be in custody in Egypt "were it not for the government," Tajani underlined.
Zaki, a post-graduate student at the University of Bologna, returned to Italy last July after receiving a pardon from Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. A day earlier, an Egyptian court handed Zaki a binding three-year jail sentence following his arrest in 2020 for "spreading false news" and threatening national security.
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