Iran sentences Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to ANOTHER year in jail for ‘propaganda against the Islamic Republic’
- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was banned from leaving Iran by the court on Monday
- She faces another year in jail on charges of ‘propaganda against the system’
- Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first arrested in 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison
An Iranian Revolutionary court has sentenced British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a one-year jail term and she is banned from leaving the country for a year, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told Emtedad news website on Monday.
‘Nazanin Zaghari was sentenced to one year in prison and one year ban from leaving the country on charges of propaganda against the Islamic Republic,’ Hojjat Kermani told the website.
Iran released Zaghari-Ratcliffe from house arrest last Sunday at the end of a five-year prison sentence, but she was then summoned to court again on the other charge.
The case was heard in the Revolutionary Court, in front of the same judge who conducted Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s earlier hearings.
An Iranian Revolutionary court has sentenced British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a one-year jail term and she is banned from leaving the country for a year
In mid-March, her husband Richard Zaghari-Ratcliffe said he thought she was likely to be convicted but did not know what sentence she would receive.
He said: ‘The Revolutionary Court is not in the business of acquitting people, it does only do convictions but it can take its time in doing that and the sentence can vary.
‘I don’t think at this stage I can read whether what we’re witnessing tomorrow is a warning shot, or is essentially building a whole new justification for holding onto her for years to come.
‘We don’t know what we don’t know, I think the uncertainty is part of the abuse.’
Mr Ratcliffe, an accountant from West Hampstead, North-West London, said he was trying to shield the couple’s daughter, Gabriella, six, from the stress he and his wife have suffered.
Mr Ratcliffe, an accountant from West Hampstead, North-West London, said he was trying to shield the couple’s daughter, Gabriella,now six, from the stress he and his wife have suffered
At the time, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned Iran’s decision to continue with a ‘wholly arbitrary’ new case against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe as ‘unacceptable and unjustifiable’.
He said: ‘It is unacceptable and unjustifiable that Iran has chosen to continue with this second, wholly arbitrary, case against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
‘The Iranian government has deliberately put her through a cruel and inhumane ordeal.
‘Nazanin must be allowed to return to her family in the UK without further delay. We continue to do all we can to support her.’
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.
She was held for years in the notorious Evin prison, where she was interrogated while blindfolded.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. Pictured: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani