NEWS BRIEF Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen, was sentenced to five years in prison by Iran’s Revolutionary Tribunal on unknown charges, Reuters reports.
Devastated & outraged by news that #FreeNazanin has been sentenced to 5yrs, but no charges - UK gov must act now https://t.co/CHNBRsSxwN
— Free Nazanin (@FreeNazanin) September 9, 2016
“Nazanin confirmed this sentence to her husband in a phone call today (9 September). She is expected to serve her sentence in Evin prison,” her family said in a statement Friday.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 37-year-old charity worker with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was traveling from Tehran to her home in London with her two-year-old daughter on April 3 when she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. In August, when Zaghari-Ratcliffe first appeared in court, the Associated Press reported she was accused of taking part in the “design and implementation of cyber and media projects to cause the soft toppling of the Islamic Republic.” Since then, she has remained in detention for 159 days and is currently being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, known for housing political prisoners.
Monique Villa, the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, issued a statement condemning the sentence, which she called a “terrible situation.”