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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British and Iranian national in detention, avoided being sent back to jail after appearing in court to hear new charges of undermining the Iranian state.
There were fears that she would be sent back to Evin Prison in Tehran, but the hearing was postponed before she could present her defense, her British-based family told their local MP, Tulip Siddiq.
No UK official was present at the hearing, despite repeated requests from the UK Foreign Office.
Siddiq said: “It is difficult to imagine the mental torture caused by the repeated threat to return to prison, and this terrible situation is now creeping in 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 first five-year sentence, and has admitted to being terrified of being sent back to jail for another long sentence. There was no new evidence in the file given to his attorneys to substantiate the charges, according to his family. Informed last week that the second trial would take place this week, Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been told to bring clothes with her as she would return 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 judicial process as a negotiating tactic by the Revolutionary Guard continues to be deeply traumatic for Nazanin and the rest of us. We look forward to the next climb. We don’t expect him to be nice. “
She also thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for ruling on her demand that she not be sent back to jail. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke with Zaghari Ratcliffe before the hearing,
The UK Foreign Office has said the new charges were unjustified and that if she was sent back to jail, the basis of the relationship between Iran and Britain would change.
The political background for bringing Zaghari-Ratcliffe back to court appears to be a tightening of the position of the conservative factions ahead of the US elections and Iran’s own presidential elections in June.
Over the weekend, the UK Foreign Office has been pressuring Iranian officials on Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but it appears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is determined to increase pressure on the UK over what appears be a new and tougher approach to dual citizens.
Nahid Taghavi, a 66-year-old German-Iranian architect, was arrested on October 16 and taken to Evin prison. Her daughter Mariam Claren tweeted an appeal for her release on Monday, saying her mother had been denied access to a lawyer and was being held in solitary confinement.
A Franco-Iranian academic, Fariba Adelkhah, is under house arrest in Tehran. She was sentenced to six years in prison on national security charges after being arrested in June of last year.
Adelkhah’s French colleague and partner, Roland Marchal, who was detained along with her, was released in March in an apparent prisoner exchange.
Marchal was released after France released Iranian engineer Jallal Rohollahnejad, who was facing extradition to the United States on allegations that he violated US sanctions against Iran. The US State Department said it deeply regrets the decision to release him.
An Australian scholar, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, has reportedly been returned to Evin Prison after being transferred to Qarchak Prison, where she was visited by Australian consular officials on 19 October.
A second British-Iranian dual national, 66-year-old Anoosheh Ashoori, has been in prison during the coronavirus outbreak. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke with Ashoori’s wife last week to assure her that he was doing everything possible to secure his release.
A third party with dual nationality whose identity cannot be revealed also faces legal proceedings. Tehran denied reports last week that two US detainees were to be released.
At the weekly press conference of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the spokesman asked the United Kingdom to pay the debt it owes to Iran derived from the non-delivery of the Chieftain tanks bought by Iran in the 1970s by the United Kingdom. . Saeed Khatibzadeh said: “We are trying to pay this debt to Iran as soon as possible, and the origin of this debt and its beneficiaries are clear.”
A UK high court hearing scheduled last week to hear Iranian claims that the UK repay the debt was postponed at the instigation of the Iranians, according to the Defense Ministry.
