British-Iranian woman accused of bid to ‘overthrow regime’

A British-Iranian woman who was arrested in Iran in April is accused on Wednesday of seeking to “overthrow the regime,” according to a statement from the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, is accused of being “involved in the soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic through… her membership in foreign companies and institutions,” the Mizan news agency quotes a regional Guards branch as saying.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, was arrested at Tehran airport on April 3 as she prepared to return to Britain with her daughter after visiting family in Iran, her husband told AFP last week.

Iran doesn’t recognize dual citizenship and, if put on trial, she will be considered an Iranian.

According to the Guards, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “identified and arrested after massive intelligence operations” as one of “the heads of foreign-linked hostile networks.”

She is alleged to have conducted “various missions… leading her criminal activities under the direction of media and intelligence services of foreign governments.”

“Further investigations are being done and her case has been sent to Tehran for legal proceedings,” the statement adds.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in a furnished room in a prison in the southeastern city of Kerman, it adds.

Her husband says she was held in solitary confinement for 45 days.

— AFP