Amid Iran war talk , trial nears for man after drone killed US troops

yahoo.com · Feb 21, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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As politicians discuss a possible military attack on Iran, a trial is approaching for an Iranian-born engineer accused of providing American technology to an Iranian-controlled company linked to a Middle East drone attack that killed three American soldiers from Georgia.Jury selection had been scheduled to start Feb. 23 in Boston for Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi’s March 2 trial on charges of conspiring to violate America’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the country's sanctions on commerce with Iran.The selection was moved back to Feb. 27 after defense lawyers argued Feb. 20 that “alarming media reports about a possible attack by the U.S.” would harm their client’s chance for a fair trial.USA TODAY: Trump says Iran has 10 days to reach nuclear deal to avoid military actionSadeghi, who lived in Massachusetts and claimed both American and Iranian citizenship, is not charged with causing the January 2024 attack on an American military base in Jordan or supporting the Iranian government. He is instead charged with working with an Iranian engineer who co-founded a company that worked for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, helping that man get American tech that was supposed to be off-limits and might have been used in drones the IRGC bought.The drone attack on housing units at the 350-person outpost near the Syrian border killed three members of the 926th Engineer Brigade, an Army Reserve combat engineer brigade at Fort Moore, Georgia. Iran denied involvement in the attack, but the U.S. and others said groups Iran supported were responsible.About 40 soldiers were injured in the attack, which took the lives of Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross, Georgia.; Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Georgia, and Willingboro, New Jersey; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah, Georgia. Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant.Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, GeorgiaSadeghi was indicted in December 2024 along with Mohammad Abedini, the founder of an Iranian company that makes navigation modules for drones used by the IRGC, an arm of the Iranian government that the U.S. State Department labeled a foreign terrorist organization in 2019. Abedini, who lived in Tehran, was arrested in Italy in 2024 but later released without being extradited to the United States.It's not clear how the absence of Abedini, who had faced more charges than Sadeghi, will affect the focus of the court case. A superseding indictment filed in December 2025 to replace the original charges said the two men jointly caused an unnamed American company to export electronic components ― "certain of which had applications in the navigation of drones" ― to Switzerland, where Abedini transported goods and tech to Iran.A transfer case is unloaded during the dignified transfer ceremony of the remains of three U.S. service members killed in the drone attack on the U.S. military outpost in Jordan, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Feb. 2, 2024.Federal officials said in 2024 that an analysis of a drone recovered from the Jordan attack showed it was an Iranian Shahed UAV and that it used a navigation system manufactured by Abedini’s company, known by the initials SDRA. Prosecutors said then that Sadeghi, who before his indictment worked for a microelectronics manufacturer, had traveled to Iran around 2016 to request funding from a foundation tied to Iran’s government and created an Iranian company that worked with SDRA.The December 2025 superseding indictment said "Iranian-backed militants" carried out the attack in Jordan, using a Shahed 101 drone that contained a navigation system "manufactured by Abedini's company, SDRA."A Feb. 18 "statement of the case" the prosecution and defense were required to develop together said simply that the government claimed Sadeghi "illegally exported and re-exported electronics parts to Iran through Switzerland" and conspired with others. Sadeghi denied those claims and had pleaded not guilty, the statement added.The defense warning about jurors being tainted by media coverage of current events with Iran also said that prosecutors had thinned their trial exhibit list by removing "extensive evidence" about collection of debris found in Jordan and Syria. Seven military witnesses and two expert witnesses were also cut from prosecutors' witness lists for the trial, the defense said.The doors of a van with the transfer cases are closed during the dignified transfer ceremony of the remains of three U.S. service members killed in the drone attack on the U.S. military outpost in Jordan, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Feb. 2, 2024.While trial preparations moved ahead, President Donald Trump said on Feb. 20 he was considering a limited strike on Iran, where he has spoken of wanting a deal to limit Iran's nuclear capacity and has sent numerous warships to the surrounding region.In Congress, top Democratic members of the House committees on Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a joint statement the same day opposing military force against Iran.“We strongly oppose preemptive U.S. military action against Iran, which endangers U.S. personnel and risks drawing Israel and Gulf partners into a wider conflict," the leaders said. "Absent a broader diplomatic framework, miliary strikes would be destabilizing, dangerous, and counterproductive to efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East."This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Trial near for engineer after deadly drone attack on US troops