TEHRAN (Iran News) – Nazanin Zaghari released. For the past year, she was wearing an ankle bracelet to locate her around her father’s house. On Sunday, the ankle bracelet was removed.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a convict being held in Iranian prisons for security offenses.
Iranian Intelligence authorities arrested Zaghari at the Imam Khomeini International Airport on April 3, 2016, on her way to London where she has been residing after visiting her parents in Tehran.
The 39-year-old was arrested after it became clear that she had run an illegal course to recruit and train people for the Persian service of the BBC, which is a major party to the “soft war” being waged by the West against Tehran, according to Iranian officials.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe had initially been sentenced to five years in jail on charges relating to national security, but authorities later opened her case and tried her on additional charges based on new evidence including a BBC paycheck and contents of her personal email.
She has another open case and the first court session on it will be held on Sunday, March 14.
Her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the Iranian website Emtedad on Sunday that her five-year prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment was complete.
“She was pardoned by Iran’s supreme leader last year but spent the last year of her term under house arrest with electronic shackles tied to her feet. Now they’re cast off,” Kermani told the website. “She has been freed.”
Iran’s judiciary officials have yet to comment on the release.
In practice, the news means she has been released from the ankle tag that keeps her within 300 meters of her parents’ home, but since she is facing a set of charges this Sunday she is unlikely to be given back her passport, which she would need to return to the UK.
The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said: “We welcome the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ankle tag, but Iran’s continued treatment of her is intolerable. She must be allowed to return to the UK as soon as possible to be reunited with her family.”
- source : IRNA
