DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A trial to bring new charges against a British-Iranian woman detained for five years in Iran was convened on Sunday, supporters said, casting uncertainty about her future after her release from prison.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in court to face charges of “spreading propaganda against the regime,” said Richard Ratcliffe, who openly campaigned for his wife’s release.
Iranian authorities introduced the new charge months ago, but postponed the trial until Zaghari-Ratcliffe served his five-year sentence on widely refuted espionage charges last week. A verdict is expected within a few days, he added.
“The accusations are not particularly relevant, since the aim of reviving this case again last week was simply to hold Nazanin for leverage, as negotiations with the UK have intensified,” said Ratcliffe.
The latest turnaround in the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case comes when Britain and Iran negotiate a long-running dispute over a £ 400m ($ 530m) debt owed to London by Tehran. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the late Iranian shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid the amount for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, a charge she, her supporters and human rights groups deny. While working at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, she was taken into custody at Tehran airport in April 2016 when she was returning home to Britain after visiting her family.
Over the years, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention has sparked international outrage over Iran’s human rights record and tightened ties between Britain and Iran. Now, a week after she was allowed to remove the ankle monitor and out of house arrest, she remains in prison, unable to fly home to her family in London. Authorities released Zaghari-Ratcliffe from jail leave last March because of the increase in the coronavirus pandemic, and she has been detained at her parents’ home in Tehran ever since.
The Sunday morning hearing was brief, Ratcliffe said, noting that his wife appeared before a section of the country’s Revolutionary Court in Tehran, where she was first sentenced to prison on obscure spying charges in 2017. Judge Abolghassem Salavati, known for his tough sentences and heard other cases on political charges, “was calm and polite,” he said.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab denounced the new case against Zaghari-Ratcliffe as “totally arbitrary”, adding that “she must be allowed to return to her family in the UK without delay”.
Iranian state media did not immediately report the trial. But the country’s pro-reform newspaper Shargh said on its Telegram news channel that the final trial on the propaganda charges was held “in total peace” in Tehran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed to make a personal statement in which he denied allegations of propaganda disclosure and called for a fair trial, Ratcliffe added.
Human rights groups accuse Iran of having dual nationality as a bargaining chip for money or influence in negotiations with the West, something Tehran denies. Iran does not recognize dual nationality, so detainees like Zaghari-Ratcliffe cannot receive consular assistance. A UN panel criticized what it describes as “an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationality” in Iran.
Officials in London and Tehran deny that the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case is related to the refund agreement for non-delivery of tanks. But a prisoner exchange that freed four American citizens in 2016 saw the United States pay a similar amount to Iran on the same day of its release.
In a call last week with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he emphasized that “Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s continued confinement remains completely unacceptable”. Iran’s reading of the same call made no mention of the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, but instead claimed that Johnson had emphasized to Rouhani “the need to pay Iran’s debts to Iran”.
The Zaghari-Ratcliffe case also highlighted the dangers faced by detainees in overcrowded Iranian prisons. The United Nations has reported that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s treatment, including refusing medical attention, can be considered torture. Nodules in the breasts, as well as a painful neurological condition, were left untreated.
REDRESS, a London-based human rights organization that helped campaign for the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, announced last week that it had commissioned an independent assessment of his physical and psychological condition and found evidence of torture and ill-treatment, the effects of which continue. to torment her, he said.
Although Sunday’s hearing promised to be the last, the length of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention remains uncertain.
“I hope everything is done. I hope I don’t see everyone again and that this is the end, “Zaghari-Ratcliffe said in a statement after the hearing.” All we can do is wait ”.
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The Associated Press editor, Amir Vahdat, in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.