Iran sets Dec. 10 court date for jailed Iranian-British aid worker

Iran has told jailed Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe that she will appear in court next month accused of spreading propaganda, her husband, Richard, said on Thursday.

“She’s been told she will appear in court on Dec. 10,” he told Reuters. He said that he understood she would appear in court charged with spreading propaganda.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced to five years after being convicted by an Iranian court of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s fate become a major political issue in Britain after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made remarks on Nov. 1 that appeared to cast doubt on statements from her employer about what she had been doing in Iran.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News, said she had been on holiday.

Johnson told a parliamentary committee he understood she had been teaching people journalism before her arrest in April 2016. He later apologized for his remarks. The Thomson Reuters Foundation said she had not been training journalists in Iran.

Iranian state television has said Johnson’s comments showed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s guilt and that she was involved in spying.

source: AFP