Iran links £400m debt to jail release
THE Ministry of Defence (MOD) has rejected an appeal by the Foreign Office to hand over £400 million allegedly owed to Iran for a tank deal despite claims it could help secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe, the British-iranian woman jailed in Iran, it was claimed yesterday.
The move to settle a legal dispute over the outstanding debt has been resisted by successive defence ministers because of fears the money could end up in the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Iranian authorities have not made an explicit link between the outstanding payment and the fate of Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe, a charity worker who is serving a five-year jail sentence for espionage, but in private Iranians cite the £400million as one reason for the lack of trust between Tehran and London.
The IRGC is the military wing of the Iranian government and seen as playing a key role in destabilising regimes in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It has been declared a terrorist organisation by the US, but not by the UK.
The Guardian reported that records would show there had been some heated exchanges between the Foreign Office and MOD about the debt.
Lawyers for Richard Ratcliffe, Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe’s husband, have pressed UK ministers to discuss the means by which the debt could be paid to an Iranian government entity other than its ministry of defence, or through humanitarian channels.
Another option is for the UK Treasury’s office of financial sanctions to issue a licence that would make the payment permissible under EU law.
At the weekend, the secrecy over the decades-old dispute was lifted when The Sunday Times won a court order allowing the arguments in the case to be published, a decision welcomed yesterday by Mr Ratcliffe.
The court papers show Iran had asked the Treasury to approve the payment from a government-owned defence company to the Central Bank of Iran. Iranian officials believe the payment can be made without breaching EU sanctions.
Yesterday, Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said the Government would “keep leaving no stone unturned” in the case of Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe.
Mr Hunt said the Government was “very happy” for a court hearing to be made public but also likened any handover of the debt to ransom money.
“I want to reassure [Mr Ratcliffe] that there is no policy to keep these court hearings private.
“It is an arbitration procedure which is normally held in private unless someone applies for it to be made public and we’re very happy for it to be made public.
“The reality is that Nazanin is an entirely innocent woman who is being held as a tool of diplomatic leverage by Iran and we don’t know exactly what it is they’re looking for.
“But the problem is if you pay ransom money to someone who is a hostage, then all that happens is you might get that hostage out, but the next time they want something, they’ll just take someone else hostage, that is the conundrum you have.”
Mr Ratcliffe said: “It feels like we’re a very explicit bargaining chip that’s being used.”