Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British-Iranian woman to face trial on security charges, head of Iran's Revolutionary Court says

A British-Iranian aid worker who has spent more than two years in an Iranian jail is to face a second trial on new charges, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Court has reportedly said.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 and jailed for five years for spying against the regime.

A report by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturday said the court’s head Musa Ghazanfarabadi told it the new charges also related to Iran’s security.

“Ghazanfarabadi said the charge against (Nazanin) Zaghari (-Ratcliffe) in the new case is security-related but did not say whether it was espionage or another charge,” the report said.

It comes after Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s supporters said she had been told by a judge to expect to be reconvicted and re-sentenced on a “resurrected” charge of “spreading propaganda against the regime”.

Her husband has claimed she was shown evidence against her last weekend that appeared to be the same material used to convict her in 2016.

“The judge briefly showed her the file against her. While she was not allowed to read it in detail, from that quick view she understood she was being prosecuted again with the same material that had been exaggerated and used to justify her first trial,” he said.

“The judge told Nazanin to expect that likely there will be another conviction and sentence against her.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case became widely known six months ago when a gaffe by Boris Johnson appeared to have significantly worsened her situation.

The foreign secretary was widely condemned when he told a committee of MPs the mother-of-one was teaching journalists in Iran when she was arrested.

In fact, the charity worker had gone to Tehran on holiday, hoping to visit her parents and other family members with her 21-month-old daughter Gabriella.

Iranian state media portrayed Mr Johnson’s words as an accidental confession that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a spy.

Eventually, the foreign secretary apologised and promised to “leave absolutely no stone unturned” in his efforts to secure her release.

Mr Ratcliffe has said he suspects his wife remains in jail because Britain and Iran insist on haggling over the precise interest rate to be paid by the UK to settle a £450m debt from a 1970s arms deal.

The Iranian government has said Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always been fairly treated “according to due judicial process” after being “detained due to illegal acts”.