Iran announces ‘new evidence’ against jailed Brit mum Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe which could add 16 years to her prison term
IRAN has broadcast what it claims is evidence against jailed Brit Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe that could add 16 years to her prison sentence.
A programme on state TV claimed to show a BBC pay cheque and an email from 2010 showing she once trained Iranian journalists — as the regime accuses her of trying to topple its brutal regime.
Nazanin's husband Richard Ratcliffe said the shock claims were propaganda and lies to weaken British officials' bargaining position as they attempt to secure her release.
He added: “I think it is spectacularly unlikely she will have a fair trial.”
The mum, 38, was arrested in Iran in April 2016 while visiting her family and jailed for training journalists – charges she denies.
She was said to be “suicidal” after a blunder by Boris Johnson in which he incorrectly told MPs she had been in the country "teaching journalism". The Foreign Secretary later issued a firm correction and apologised.
And it showed an email from June 2010 about a scheme for aspiring Iranian journalists that it said Nazanin had written.
Husband Richard and her current employer Thomson Reuters have repeatedly denied she was in Iran to do any work, and was instead visiting family.
Mr Ratcliffe said on Sunday the propaganda programme was "trying to justify the new charges".
Iran is believed to be holding out on Nazanin's release over an apparent outstanding bill of £400million for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered because of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But a spokesman for Theresa May said: "We are clear we don’t see any link between these two issues".
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