Brit mum flung in hellhole Iran jail on trumped-up spying charges as she tried to fly home with toddler daughter WILL spend five months in prison
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran while trying to leave with toddler daughter Gabriella
A BRITISH mum flung into hellhole jail on trumped-up spying charges has had her five-year sentence confirmed.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, was arrested at the airport in the capital Tehran in April while trying to leave the country with her toddler daughter, Gabriella.
Hardline Islamic authorities originally accused her with involvement in an alleged plot to topple the government but gave no details.
Her sentence in September for “unspecified national security offences” was rubber-stamped despite pleas from David Cameron and a global petition signed by nearly a million supporters.
Iran’s brutal Revolutionary Guards had her locked up at Iran’s dreaded Evin Prison where anti-government journalists, online bloggers and activists are routinely beaten and tortured.
But Narzanin’s husband Richard Ratcliffe from Hampstead, North London claimed she was being used as a “bargaining chip” by Iran.
He warned his desperate wife - who has dual British and Iranian nationality - was “at breaking point” in November after going on hunger strike while protesting her innocence in jail.
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Sources say journalist Narzanin may have been singled out because she worked for the BBC between 2008-09 - and Iran’s rulers despise the influence of the corporation’s Persian Service.
Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi ratified the five-year sentence today and did not elaborate.
Iran does not recognise dual nationalities and have refused the mum help from the British Embassy in Tehran.
In December, heartbroken Richard shared his agony as he prepared to spend his first Christmas away from Narzanin.
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