Johnson clarifies remarks over jailed Brit
BRITISH Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called his Iranian counterpart yesterday in a bid to clarify remarks which left him accused of jeopardising the case of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran.
Johnson faced calls to quit after telling a parliamentary committee last week that Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe was training journalists in Iran when she was arrested for alleged sedition last year – a comment her employer and her family insisted he correct.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, appeared in court on Saturday to face further charges, first brought early last month, that carry a 16-year prison term.
The Iranian judiciary issued an online report on Sunday, saying Johnson’s comments proved she was not on holiday, as her family said, backing the justification for new charges.
In the call with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Johnson said the suggestion that his remarks had shed new light on the case was not true as it was clear she had been on holiday, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Johnson had been seeking to make the point that he condemned the Iranian view that training journalists was a crime, not that he believed Iranian allegations that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been engaged in such activity, the spokesman said.
Johnson said his remarks could form no justifiable basis for further action in this case and called for her release on humanitarian grounds.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said Johnson had made a factual error.
He said the court appearance had left his wife stressed and upset. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the media agency’s philanthropic arm, was arrested at the Tehran airport on April 3 last year after visiting family. – AFP