Nazanin back in prison after mental ward ‘torture’
A BRITISH-Iranian woman jailed in Iran has been transferred back to prison from a hospital mental health ward she described as “proper torture”.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been kept in solitary confinement and chained to a hospital bed, said her husband Richard Ratcliffe, who added she had been discharged on Saturday.
The news comes amid heightened tensions between the UK and Iran over the seizure of the British-flagged tanker in the Persian Gulf.
The 40-year-old was arrested at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport while travelling with her young daughter in April 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spying, a charge she vehemently denies.
She was moved from Evin prison last week to the mental health ward of Imam Khomeini hospital in Tehran upon the command of health authorities in the country.
But she was returned to prison after breaking out of her bindings and telling guards she was at risk of self-harming if she remained in the hospital, Mr Ratcliffe said.The couple spoke by phone on Sunday and yesterday when she told him of her ordeal. Mr Ratcliffe said his wife told him she was “broken” by the experience and “relieved” to be back in prison. She told him: “They did all they could to me – handcuffs, ankle cuffs, in a private room 2m by 3m. I was chained to the bed. It was proper torture. I have been put through hell.”
Her constituency MP Tulip Siddiq said she called for questions to be answered over claims by former Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan that talks about her possible release had been brought to an “abrupt halt”.