British-Iranian academic Abbas Edalat detained in Iran, rights group says

A British-Iranian academic was detained in Iran by the country's Revolutionary Guards in mid-April, a rights group has reported.

The Foreign Office (FCO) said it was urgently seeking information about Abbas Edalat, a professor of computer science at Imperial College in London.

The dual British-Iranian national's detention was first reported by the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

It said that Prof Edalat had travelled to Iran from his home in London at an unknown date for academic purposes.

The guards confiscated a computer, CDs and notebooks from Prof Edalat when he was arrested, the group said, quoting an unnamed source.

The academic's family posted bail for him on 21 April but the Revolutionary Court in the country's capital Tehran, did not release him, citing problems with documentation, a statement from the group added.

It did not specify what charges may have been brought against Prof Edalat. The Iranian judiciary could not be reached for comment.

"Iran's continued arbitrary arrests of dual nationals without transparency and the denial of due process is extremely concerning," CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi said.

Prof Edalat is a founder of the US-based Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII), an advocacy group that opposes foreign intervention in the Islamic Republic, according to CHRI.

The Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals since 2015, most for alleged espionage.

At least three other British-Iranian dual citizens are known to be held in the Islamic Republic.

Among them is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who remains in Tehran's Evin Prison more than two years after arrested at the airport as she returned home with her young daughter Gabriella from a holiday celebrating the Iranian New Year celebration Nowruz with relatives.

Her case was complicated by foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who was widely condemned in November when he told a committee of MPs that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching journalists in Iran.

The charity worker has denied teaching journalists.

After Iranian state media portrayed Mr Johnson’s words as an accidental confession that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a spy, Mr Johnson eventually apologised and promised to do everything he could to secure her release.

He visited Iran in December and had what were described as “frank” talks with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

But on the second anniversary of her incarceration, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband accused him of "failing to deliver" on his promise to secure her release.

“The question is: has the foreign secretary given up on his promise to bring home Nazanin soon?" he told The Independent. “And more importantly, will Nazanin lose her faith that the foreign secretary is capable of keeping his promise?"

Reuters contributed to this report