British-Iranian dual national faces new charge, says state TV

Iran’s state television, citing an unnamed official, announced on Tuesday that British-Iranian dual national Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe is facing a new charge. The report did not elaborate beyond saying that ZaghariRatcliffe appeared on Tuesday morning before a branch of the country’s Revolutionary Court in Tehran, where she was first sentenced in 2017.

Calls to both Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s attorney and the court were not immediately returned.

The new charges come as Britain and Iran negotiate the release of some £400 million ($530 million) held by London, a payment the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered. The shah abandoned the throne in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution soon installed the clerically overseen system that endures today. Tehran has denied that her detention was linked to the alleged repayment deal. Zaghari-Ratcliffe this spring was granted temporary release from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic after serving nearly all of her 5 year sentence. Iran has been hit hard by the virus, becoming the worstaffected country in the Middle East. Tens of thousands of inmates were released as Iran tried to curb the spread of the virus in its crowded prisons.

Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, so detainees like Zaghari-Ratcliffe cannot receive consular assistance. A UN panel has described “an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals” in Iran, which Tehran denies.

Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran say hardliners in the country’s security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations

with the West.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Her family says she was in Iran only to visit family, vigorously denying the charges that she was plotting the “soft toppling” of Iran’s regime. At the time, Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.