An American on a flight from Dubai to Seattle suffered a heart attack and was taken to Iran for treatment, according to reports Saturday.

The AFP news agency, citing Iran’s ISNA service, said the Emirates aircraft was in Iranian airspace when the passenger, 52, became unwell and the plane landed in Tehran.

“Yesterday (Friday), an airplane belonging to the Emirates airline, flying from Dubai to Seattle and while passing over Iran’s airspace, contacted the control tower and announced that one of this flight’s passengers had suffered a heart attack,” Abbas Mosayebi, of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, was quoted as saying.

“Despite international sanctions against the Iranian people which also endanger their lives, yesterday we helped an American citizen in our country,” Mosayebi reportedly said, adding the man was still in a hospital Saturday.

Iran, world powers begin talks over its nuke program

AFP said Swiss diplomats in Tehran, who handle American interests in the absence of a U.S. Embassy, declined to comment on the report.

The incident comes and the U.S. and other world powers are holding talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

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Amanda Knox, left, is comforted by her sister, Deanna Knox, during a news conference shortly after her arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Oct. 4, 2011.

Amanda Knox's Italian lawyer has filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy, a family spokesman said Monday.

In October, an Italian appeals court overturned the young Seattle woman's murder conviction in the 2007 death of her British roommate in Perugia. But the same court upheld Knox's conviction for slander — for falsely accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of involvement in the slaying.

Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence.

Knox later said she was "manipulated" during her lengthy police interrogation.

Amanda Knox 'loves Italy' and might return

An appeal of the slander conviction was filed Monday, Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott confirmed. He doesn't know when the Italian court might consider it.

Knox returned to Seattle after her murder conviction was overturned. The former exchange student had been in custody since 2007.

In its ruling last fall, the Italian appeals court also acquitted Knox's then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

A third defendant, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year prison sentence — reduced on appeal from an initial 30 years — was upheld by Italy's highest court in 2010.

In a lengthy court document explaining the ruling that cleared Knox and Sollecito, presiding appeals court Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann wrote that Knox implicated Lumumba after hours of intense police questioning because "she was convinced that was what the police wanted her to do; to name a guilty person."

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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.