Iran holding three more Brits in prison in what diplomats fear is revenge for Theresa May locking up two of its officials
IRAN is holding three other Brits in jail as well as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in what diplomats fear may be revenge for Theresa May locking up two of its officials.
It emerged last night that a total FOUR dual nationals are now in jail in Teheran.
Only 38-year-old mum Nazanin and 77-year-old British-Iranian Kamal Foroughi’s cases were previously publicly declared.
In an extraordinary twist, senior Whitehall figures claimed last night that the PM’s past actions may be partly to blame for the spiralling international stand-off.
The Sun can reveal that Iran was left furious when two of its officials were locked up on arrival in London in 2013 on Mrs May’s orders when Home Secretary.
The Iranian government lawyer and a senior defence official had come to reclaim £450m in the High Court over a 1979 tank detail that Britain reneged on.
But they were immediately arrested on landing at Heathrow, despite having been granted visas for the trip.
The men were then sent to asylum centres and deported five days later.
Foreign Office diplomats suspect their treatment to be one of the motives for holding Nazanin in April 2016 while visiting her family on charges she was teaching journalists’ propaganda.
A Whitehall source said last night: “The regime were furious.”
A government minister also this week claimed that Iran “conducts foreign policy by hostage taking” after hardliners presented ministers with a multi-million pound shopping list of demands to free Nazanin.
They include the return of their cash, paid for the 1,565 Chieftain which were never delivered.
As The Sun revealed yesterday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is preparing to pay long the long-standing £450m debt, which Iran has made clear they want settled before Nazanin is released.
Iran last night insisted it has made no ransom demands, despite bringing up the tanks money during conversations about Nazanin.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said: “These are two separate matters. Linking them is wrong.”
The PM’s official spokesman added: “I think we’re clear that we don’t see any link between these two issues.”
Businessman Mr Foroughi was arrested in 2011 and sentenced to eight years in prison two years later on espionage and alcohol charges.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “In the Foreign Office, and across government we have been working very hard over the last 19 months to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and to solve some other very difficult consular cases in Iran”.
On the Iranians’ arrests, a Home Office spokeswoman said: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases”.
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