British-Iranian held for 5 years facing new trial

TEHRAN, Iran — A British-Iranian woman held in an Iranian prison for five years on widely rebutted spying charges ended her sentence Sunday, her lawyer said, although she faces a new trial and cannot yet return home to London.

The twists and turns of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case have sparked international anger and strained already fraught diplomatic ties between Britain and Iran.

Although Zaghari-Ratcliffe completed her full sentence and was allowed to remove her ankle monitor and leave house arrest, her future remains uncertain amid a long-running debt dispute between Britain and Iran and rising regional tensions.

“It feels to me like they have made one blockage just as they have removed another, and we very clearly remain in the middle of this government game of chess,” said her husband, Richard Ratcliffe.

Iranian state-run media reported that she has been summoned to court next Sunday over murky new charges, including “spreading propaganda,” which were first announced last fall. Her trial was then indefinitely postponed, stirring hopes for her return home when her sentence ended. Authorities released her on furlough last March because of the surging coronavirus pandemic.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s government, a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups vigorously deny. She was taken into custody at the airport with her toddler daughter after visiting family on holiday in Tehran in 2016. At the time, she was working for Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.

The United Nations has described her arrest as arbitrary, and reported that her treatment, including stints in solitary confinement and deprivation of medical care, could amount to torture.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the removal of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle tag but called for her to be allowed to return home.

“Her continued confinement remains totally unacceptable,” he said on Twitter. “She must be released permanently so she can return to her family in the UK, and we continue to do all we can to achieve this.”

The latest setback in Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case comes as Britain and Iran negotiate a spat over a debt of some $530 million owed to Iran by London, a payment the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.

Ratcliffe, who for years has campaigned vocally for his wife’s release, has said that Iran was holding her as “collateral” in the dispute. Authorities in London and Tehran deny that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case is linked to the issue.

What will happen next weekend in court is uncertain. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and supporters fear the worst.

“We don’t know how to interpret being summoned … Is it that they’re just going to finish off all the paperwork and release her and give her passport back? Or is it that they are going to whack her with that second sentence?” her sister-in-law, Rebecca Ratcliffe, told U.K’s Sky News.

The uncertainty means “there are a few more sleepless nights ahead of us,” she said.

With her ankle tag off for the first time, Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent the afternoon visiting her grandmother and the family of one of the other British-Iranians held in prison, her husband said.

“It’s a mixed day for us,” Ratcliffe said. “She is having a nice afternoon, has turned her phone off and is not thinking about the rest of it.”