- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyers say the UK is delaying efforts to secure her release in order to avoid angering Trump.
- Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman, has been trapped in Iran since her arrest there in 2016.
- She was visting family when she was arrested for allegedly “plotting to topple the Iranian government.”
- The UK government has been trying to secure her release ever since.
- However, her lawyers have accused Boris Johnson’s government of not taking all necessary steps to bring her back to the UK.
- They say the UK is refusing to pay Iran a £400 million debt for fear of undermining Trump’s hardline approach to Tehran.
Lawyers representing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – the British-Iranian woman trapped in Iran – have accused Boris Johnson’s UK government of delaying a potential deal to secure her release in order to avoid upsetting the Trump administration.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016 when she was arrested in Tehran accused of spying and “plotting to topple the Iranian government.” Zaghari-Ratcliffe totally denies the allegations and says she travelled to Iran to visit family. She was temporarily released in March at the height of Iran’s coronavirus pandemic, but has been under effective house arrest ever since.
In a seven-page letter to UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, lawyers representing Zaghari-Ratcliffe have accused the UK government of failing to take all necessary steps to secure her release from Iran for fear of undermining President Trump’s hardline approach to Iran, The Guardian newspaper reports.
The lawyers say the UK government has hindered Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release by avoiding paying Iran £400 million debt incurred by a cancelled arms deal in the 1970s. The letter said the UK government “continues to raise every possible legal objection to payment of the debt and has plainly failed to engage in constructive dialogue with Tehran.”
Read the article by Adam Payne in Business Insider Australia.