British Council employee jailed 10 years for spying

TEHERAN: An Iranian woman who worked for the British Council was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “spying”, the judiciary’s news website Mizan Online reported, sparking concern in London.

“An Iranian citizen in charge of the Iran desk at the ... British Council was cooperating with English spying agencies,” Mizan reported, quoting judiciary spokesperson Gholamhossein Esmaili.

He did not identify the suspect, but said she had been sentenced recently after she “made a straightforward confession”.

Esmaili added that the suspect, who had been tasked with drawing up and managing cultural “infiltration” projects, had been arrested by Iranian intelligence and security agencies “more than a year ago”.

Britain’s foreign ministry voiced concern over the sentence.

“We are very concerned by reports that an Iranian British Council employee has been sentenced to jail on charges of espionage,” said a spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. “British Embassy officials in Teheran are in touch with the Iranian government to seek further information.”

The British Council is a cultural and educational organisation with branches around the world, but according to its website it is not “physically present” in Iran.

Iranian authorities shut down the British Council more than a decade ago for what Esmaili described as “illegal activities”.

Esmaili said that during her confession, the suspect described how she had been recruited, telling investigators about the instructions she had been given by “an English security agency”.

The spokesperson said that she was “an Iranian student who wanted to live and work in the UK”, was hired by the British Council and “repeatedly travelled to Iran under aliases ... and made connections with artistic and theatre groups”.

For the record, a London-based British Council employee was arrested in Iran in 2018 during a trip to visit relatives. — AFP