British-Iranian National’s Jail Term Upheld

An Iranian appeals court confirmed a five-year jail sentence for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian national, on security charges, the judiciary spokesman said on Sunday. Judiciary Spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said the term had been upheld.  “The five-year prison verdict against the security defendant Nazanin Zaghari has been finalized,” the judiciary’s website Mizan quoted Ejei as telling a weekly news conference, Reuters reported. Ejei also said Farhad Abd-Saleh was handed a five-year sentence on appeal on security charges, without elaborating.

Iranian authorities have given few details about Abd-Saleh who was named in October along with five others, some of them Iranian dual nationals, who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for “espionage and collaborating with the American government”.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in early April as she tried to leave Iran after a visit. She works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a London-based charity. Several Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Canada and France have been detained in the past year and their charges range from espionage to collaboration with hostile governments.