Iran sentences British-Iranian aid worker to one year jail By Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) -An Iranian Revolutionary court has sentenced British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a one-year jail term and she is banned from leaving the country for a year, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told Emtedad news website on Monday.

“Nazanin Zaghari was sentenced to one year in prison and a one year ban from leaving the country on charges of propaganda against the Islamic Republic,” Kermani told the website.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

She was released from house arrest last month at the end of a five-year sentence, but immediately ordered back into court to face the new propaganda charges.

Iran’s judiciary was not immediately available to comment about Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sentence. Kermani said he would appeal the new sentence within 21 days under Iranian law.

Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the charges.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent four years in jail before being released into house arrest in March 2020 during the coronavirus.