The United Kingdom strongly denounced Monday the new one-year prison sentence handed down by the Iranian justice against Iranian-British Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, in the hands of justice since 2016.
Read also: Iran: Iranian-Briton Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Appeared For New Trial In Tehran
"
I think that it is not normal at all that Nazanin is sentenced to an additional prison sentence
", declared Prime Minister Boris Johnson, assuring that London intended "to
work very hard
" to obtain his release. Project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the news agency of the same name, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, was arrested in 2016 in Tehran, where she had just visited her family. Accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which she fiercely denies, she was sentenced to five years in prison. She completed her sentence under house arrest on March 7. She has since appeared for "
propaganda against the system (policy of the Islamic Republic, editor's note) for having participated in a rally in front of the Iranian embassy in London in 2009
”, according to his lawyer.
According to British media and the British branch of Amnesty International, she was sentenced to one year in prison and a one-year ban on leaving Iranian territory. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe confirmed the sentence to the BBC, seeing it "
clearly as a negotiating tactic
" in the midst of negotiations to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. "
It is a completely inhuman and unjustified decision
", reacted the head of diplomacy Dominic Raab in a press release, calling for his "
immediate
"
release
. This affair is fueling tensions between London and Tehran. Richard Ratcliffe has in the past considered his wife to be the "
hostage
Of a political game about an old debt contracted by the United Kingdom when the Shah of Iran had bought it for 400 million pounds (467 million euros) of tanks.
London then refused to deliver them when the leader was ousted in 1979, however retaining the money.
"
Nazanin's freedom is being used as a bargaining chip,
" opposition Labor MP Lisa Nandy denounced Monday.
Of
"abuse"
In mid-March, the British NGO Redress ruled in a report that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe suffered from severe post-traumatic stress after having undergone "
ill-treatment
" and that she should therefore be recognized by London as "
victim of torture
”. Iranian authorities have always denied that she was mistreated. Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, has consistently denied the UK consular access to Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe while in prison and rejects London's calls for her release as interference in its internal affairs.