Daily Times

A trial to present fresh charges against a British-Iranian woman detained for five years in Iran convened Sunday, her supporters said, casting new uncertainty over her future following her release from prison.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in court to face new charges of “spreading propaganda against the regime,” said Richard Ratcliffe, who has outspokenly campaigned for his wife’s release.

Iranian authorities had introduced the new indictment months ago, but adjourned the trial until Zaghari-Ratcliffe completed her 5-year sentence on widely refuted spying charges last week. A verdict was expected within several days, he added.

“The charges are not particularly relevant since the point 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 twist in Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case comes as Britain and Iran negotiate a long-running dispute over a debt of some 400 million pounds ($530 million) owed to Tehran by London. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid the sum for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of plotting the overthrow of Iran´s government, a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups vigorously deny. While employed at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, she was taken into custody at the Tehran airport in April 2016 as she was returning home to Britain after visiting family. Throughout the years, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention has sparked international outrage over Iran’s human rights record and strained ties between Britain and Iran. Now, a week after she was allowed to remove her ankle monitor and leave house arrest, she remains stuck, unable to fly home to her family in London. Authorities had released Zaghari-Ratcliffe from prison on furlough last March because of the surging coronavirus pandemic, and she has been detained in her parents´ Tehran home since. Sunday morning’s hearing was brief, Ratcliffe said, noting that his wife appeared before a branch of the country´s Revolutionary Court in Tehran, where she was first sentenced to prison on murky espionage charges in 2017. Judge Abolghassem Salavati, who is known for his tough sentences and has heard other politically charged cases, “was calm and polite,” he said.