Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe avoids being returned to jail.British-Iranian dual national in court to hear fresh charges of undermining Iranian state
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
The detained British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has avoided being sent back to jail after after appearing in court to hear fresh charges of undermining the Iranian state.
There had been fears that she would be sent back to Evin prison in Tehran but the hearing was adjourned before she could present her defence, her British-based family told her local MP, Tulip Siddiq.
No UK officials were present at the hearing, despite repeated requests from the UK Foreign Office.
Siddiq said: “It is hard to imagine the mental torture that being repeatedly threatened with a return to prison causes, and this awful situation is now being dragged out once again.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been under house arrest at her parents’ home in Tehran since March when she was temporarily released in part due to the coronavirus outbreak in Iran.
She has served four and a half years of her five-year first sentence, and she has admitted to being terrified of being sent back to jail for another lengthy sentence. There was no new evidence in the file handed to her lawyers to justify the charges, according to her family. Informed last week that the second trial was to go ahead this week, Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been told to bring clothes with her since she would be returning to jail.
Her daughter, Gabriella, is with her husband, Richard, in London, who said: “This is a good first step, but it is not enough. The use of the court process as a negotiating tactic by the Revolutionary Guard remains deeply traumatic for Nazanin and the rest of us. We await the next escalation. We do not expect it to be kind”.
He also thanked the Foreign Office for taking a stand over its demand that she was not sent back to jail. The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, spoke to Zaghari Ratcliffe before the hearing,
The UK Foreign Office has said the fresh charges were unwarranted and that if she was sent back to jail, the basis of the Iranian-British relationship would change. Guardian.
