UK move to protect Zaghari-ratcliffe is illegal, says Iran
IRAN has called a decision by Britain to grant Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe diplomatic protection illegal.
The charity worker, who is serving a prison sentence in Tehran for “espionage”, was yesterday extended the protection – for the first time in recent UK history – in a fresh attempt to secure her release.
Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador to the UK, said that the decision “contravened international law”.
“Governments may only exercise such protection for [their] own nationals,” he said.
“As the UK government is acutely aware, Iran does not recognise dual nationality. Irrespective of UK residency, [Mrs] Zaghari thus remains Iranian.”
Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe, a dual Britishiranian national, was arrested during a family visit to Tehran in 2016.
The move to grant protection could give ammunition to hardliners in Iran, who have always claimed she was spying for Britain. Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe, 40, who had been working with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, denies all allegations against her.
Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said he had pushed for the protection as they had exhausted all other avenues.
“Two foreign secretaries have been out to try to solve her case, an ambassador has been summoned, and plenty of promises have been made but not delivered on,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
The protection means Mrs Zaghariratcliffe’s case will now be treated as a formal legal dispute between the two states. It will also give the UK new ways of raising her case in international forums like the United Nations.
Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said the move, although unlikely to be a “magic wand” in her release, was an “important diplomatic step”.