Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was accused of plotting to topple regime, has been sentenced on secret charges, her husband says

A British-Iranian mother detained in Iran for more than 150 days has been sentenced to five years in prison, dealing a heavy blow to her family and to the UK government’s efforts to normalise relations with Iran.



Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, was sentenced on Tuesday on charges that remain secret, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, who was accused of plotting to topple the Iranian regime, was arrested at Imam Khomeini airport on 3 April as she was trying to return to Britain after a holiday visiting family with her daughter, Gabriella.

The toddler is being looked after by her grandparents in Tehran who speak little English, and celebrated her second birthday in June without her mother or father.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her daughter, Gabriella, in London in February. Photograph: Reuters

Ratcliffe, of Hampstead, north-west London, said his wife had confirmed details of her sentence in a phone call on Friday morning and told him she would appeal.

“But I don’t know how long it will take, how long it will last,” he quoted her as saying. She told him she preferred to stay asleep dreaming rather than “wake up each morning and remember where I am”, he said.

According to the Associated Press, she said she missed her daughter, asking: “Do you understand what it is like to be a mother kept away from her child this long?”

The five-year sentence, which could be served in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, was handed down by Judge Salavati of the revolutionary court. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family have asked her lawyer to appeal against the decision. No date for the appeal has yet been set.

The sentence came 24 hours after the British and Iranian governments established full diplomatic relations for the first time since 2011. The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, had hailed the upgrade in diplomatic relations as an important moment.

Nicholas Hopton, the newly appointed British ambassador, will now have to demand that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sentence be quashed on appeal, or at the very least that embassy officials be given access to her. Iran, which does not recognise dual national status, has so far refused consular access.

The timing of the sentence appeared either an extraordinary coincidence or a calculated attempt by a hardline section of Iranian society to show that it has little interest in improving relations with the UK.

Ratcliffe said the sentence was “a punishment without a crime”. He added: “Nazanin’s detention and charges have always felt like she and Gabriella are being held as a political bargaining chip for internal and international politics. The fact that she was sentenced with unrecognisable charges the day after the UK embassy was upgraded makes this all the clearer.

“Why the Revolutionary Guard wishes to manoeuvre the judiciary to announce through me the sentence but not the charges I do not know.”

Recounting the phone conversation, he said: “I told her she has nothing to apologise for. Her head will always be high. She is much loved, over 800,000 people have signed her petition, and I have thousands of messages for her to read one day.”

He said relatives were due to visit her later on Friday. In recent interviews he has said that during her time in detention Zaghari-Ratcliffe has suffered dangerous weight loss, lost some of her hair and became virtually unable to walk.

Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said she was outraged and was convinced of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s innocence.

Kathy Voss, Amnesty International UK’s individuals at risk campaign manager, said: “Iran’s revolutionary courts are notorious for handing down prison sentences after grossly unfair trials. From all the reports we’ve seen, Nazanin’s case has been a complete travesty of justice throughout – beginning with her protracted secret detention, then the unsupported accusations from officials, and culminating in this week’s out-of-the-blue sentence.”