UK-Iranian dual national held in Tehran summoned to court

LONDON (AP) — The husband of a British-Iranian woman detained in Iran for more than four years said Wednesday that she has been summoned to a new court hearing and warned she will be sent back to prison.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been told to attend court in Tehran on Monday, her husband Richard Ratcliffe said. He said she has been told to pack a bag as she will be returned to prison following the hearing.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained in Iran since 2016, when she was sentenced to five years in prison over allegations of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government. She strenuously denies the allegations.

She was arrested during a family holiday with her young daughter. Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.

She was moved to house arrest in March, when thousands of prisoners were released during the coronavirus outbreak.

Ratcliffe says his wife is being held for “political leverage” in a multimillion-pound dispute between Britain and Iran over tank sales in the 1970s.

“We don’t know what will happen on Monday, we don’t know how far and how soon they will take forward their prison threat,” he said in a statement.

“But we do know that the Revolutionary Guard are signaling something to the British government. We also know they are signaling this could have a long time still to run.”