British-iranian jailed on charges of spying

A DUAL nationality British-iranian has been sentenced to six years in prison in Iran on spying charges, according to authorities.

The dual citizen has not been named and details of the case have not been disclosed, including when the person was arrested or where.

Announcing the ruling last night, Abbas Jafari-dolatabadi, a Tehran prosecutor, said only that the courts had handed down a “six-year prison sentence for an agent of England’s intelligence service”.

The Mizan Iranian news agency quoted him as saying the same Britishiranian citizen was also under investigation in a separate case related to a private bank, giving no further details.

There are two public cases of Britishiranians held in Iran, one of them being Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe, the charity worker accused of plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government.

However, there are likely to be more cases, which have not been publicised by either the Iranian authorities or family members of those held in Iran.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals since 2015, mostly on spying charges, Reuters reported in November. Iran does not formally recognise dual citizenship, which limits the access foreign embassies have to their dual citizens held there.

The Foreign Office said it was aware of the reports last night and was looking into them. Sources suggested it may take some time to establish the veracity or otherwise of the information.

Ms Zaghari-ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been sentenced to five years for plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government. Her family and her employer insist she was visiting relatives in the country when she was arrested in April 2016. Her case was raised by Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, during a visit to Iran in December.

The other known dual citizen is Kamal Foroughi, a 78-year-old British-iranian businessman arrested in 2011 and convicted of espionage and possessing alcohol charges.

The Foreign Office says it has raised the case with Iranian authorities.