Time.news – The Iranian authorities have released the Anglo-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, arrested in 2016 for “espionage”, at the end of the five-year sentence imposed on her for conspiracy to overthrow the regime of the Islamic Republic. This was announced by her lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, assuring that the woman’s electronic ankle bracelet has been removed.
But the Anglo-Iranian cannot leave Iran because she will have to face a new judicial case and will have to go to court on March 14, next Sunday. His lawyer explained that the five-year sentence ended today and restrictions on movement were lifted. The Iranian authorities have not yet provided details on the new allegations, but Kermani said they involve involvement in “propaganda activities against the Islamic Republic” for participating in a demonstration in front of the Iranian embassy in London in 2009 and for an interview released. on that occasion at the BBC in Persian.
The 42-year-old scholar was arrested in 2016 at Tehran airport on her way back to Britain after visiting her family in Iran. At the time, he worked as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a non-profit that promotes socio-economic progress, independent journalism and the rule of law.
The Anglo-Iranian, who has always pleaded innocent, was placed under house arrest in March 2020 at her parents’ home in Tehran, after being released from the infamous Evin prison due to the Covid epidemic, along with more than 80 thousand inmates. The opening of a new proceeding was communicated to her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, British and father of the couple’s daughter, little Gabrielle.
The new development has sparked the ire of the British government, which has asked Tehran to free the woman permanently and allow her to return to the UK. “The treatment and accusations against her are intolerable”, the Iranian authorities must allow her to “return to the UK as soon as possible to reunite with her family”, tweeted British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab.
“We welcome the removal of the electronic bracelet, but the cruel and intolerable ordeal she and her family are forced into continues,” added the minister. Over the years it has been speculated that the arrest of the Anglo-Iranian is linked to a debt that the United Kingdom has owed to Iran for more than 40 years, when Shah Mohamad Reza Pahlavi bought 1,500 tanks. worth £ 400 million which were never delivered.
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