Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe at her parents’ home after temporary release from Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran, March 17, 2020
The UK Government’s fear of the Trump Administration is holding up the release of Anglo-Iranian political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from an Iran prison, her lawyers claim.
The attorneys say the Johnson Government has stalled necessary steps which include payment of a £400 million debt owed to Iran since the 1970s, setting out the claim in a seven-page letter to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
The claim echoes the belief of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard Ratcliffe that her release has been blocked by the UK’s failure to settle the debt. The money was paid by the Shah of Iran for Chieftain tanks, which were not delivered after the Shah was removed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The letter says International Military Services, a UK government agency, “continues to raise every possible legal objection to payment of the debt and has plainly failed to engage in constructive dialogue with Tehran”. A decision to defer the next high court hearing on the debt until November 4, a day after the US Presidential election, “in effect plays politics with the lives of British citizens”.
The attorneys have requested a meeting with Wallace and his advisors at the “earliest convenience”.
A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 at the Imam Khomeini International Airport as she and her infant daughter Gabriella were leaving Iran after visiting relatives. Gabriella, whose passport was seized was with her grandparents in the Iranian capital; she finally returned to the UK and her father in October 2019.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison on “espionage”. No substantial evidence was ever publicly presented in the case, but subsequent State TV “documentaries” tied the prosecution to her employment for BBC Media Action in 2009-2010.
In March, the charity worker was released on furlough because of the Coronavirus outbreak in Iran. She is at her mother’s home in Tehran under house arrest.
Her attorneys write:
The UK government is apparently waiting for implicit permission from the US government to pay the UK’s legally owed debts, payment of which would allow Nazanin (and other innocent British nationals) finally to come home. The message appears to be that the safety of British citizens abroad is subordinate to falling in line with US policy.
Noting the tactics of the Revolutionary Guards to seize foreign and dual nationals for leverage in negotiations, the attorneys set out the conditions around her imprisonment:
There has been a new wave of forced confessions and prisoners being tortured, a new programme of family members of activists and prisoners being arrested, more instances of second sentences being leveled against cellmates of Nazanin who would otherwise be eligible for release….
It is important that the UK both honours its legally owed obligations to Iran, but also calls out the Iranian government on its illegal treatment of Nazanin under Iranian law. However, the UK government has done precisely the opposite: obtusely refusing to discharge its legal obligations, whilst remaining silent and appeasing Iran in the face of Tehran’s atrocious abuse of Nazanin’s human rights.
The UK Defence Ministry responded, “As previous government statements have made clear, we remain committed to securing the immediate and permanent release of all arbitrarily detained dual British nationals in Iran and regularly lobby for their release at the highest levels. This includes through the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the British Ambassador in Tehran.”