British Aid Worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe Back in Iranian Court
British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared in Iran’s Revolutionary Court on Sunday, a week after her electronic tag was removed, signaling the end of her sentence for spying and attempting to overthrow Iran’s government. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, had spent nearly five years in an Iranian jail and another year under house arrest.
She was summoned back to court for a trial Sunday on charges of “propaganda against the system,” in part for attending a demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in London and being interviewed by the BBC Persian network more than a decade ago. A verdict should be announced in the next week. Her trial was held in a “calm” atmosphere, according to her attorney, in front of the same judge who found her guilty in 2016,
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Her husband Richard told the BBC that the British embassy in Tehran had declined to accompany her to Sunday’s trial.
She was arrested in April 2016 while visiting her parents in Iran with her British-born daughter, Gabriella, who is now six years old. She has not seen her husband in person since 2016, according to the BBC. Her British passport has not been returned to her, according to the report. She was working as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charity arm of the news agency, at the time of her arrest.
A medical report released over the weekend, commissioned by the human rights charity Redress, said that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is in urgent need of treatment for major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her mental state is reportedly the result of the first nine months of her sentence, when she was interrogated for hours, often blindfolded, while in solitary confinement.
