British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces a new charge,
Iran state TV has reported, citing an official.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker from north
London, was arrested in April 2016 while visiting her parents on holiday.
She has been incarcerated in Tehran’s notorious Evin
prison since being convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, a charge she totally denies.
The new charges come after Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family linked her detention to Iran’s negotiations with the
British government over a £400 million settlement held by London, a payment the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.
Tehran has denied that her detention was linked to the negotiations. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyers had asked the defence secretary for a meeting and called on the government to stand up to Iran for its “abusive treatment” of the jailed mother-of-one.
The lawyers want to meet Ben Wallace and his legal advisers to discuss the approach the British government is taking on the issue of debt owed to Iran.
In a letter to Wallace, sent last month, lawyers outline “grave concerns” about the UK’s “failure” to pay up.
“This failure continues to blight UK-Iranian relations and remains an intractable obstacle to Nazanin’s long-overdue release,” the letter said.
Lawyers also point out to Wallace that they still have not received a proper response to a letter they sent to him almost a year ago.
“We wrote to you on this subject on 6 September 2019, but have yet to receive any substantive response, notwithstanding an indication that a response would be forthcoming,” lawyers said.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard described the lack of response as “an astonishing lack of accountability”, adding that there has yet to be a response to the latest letter.
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