Nazanin Zaghari, Anousheh Ashouri Released by Iran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran on Wednesday released two dual British-Iranian nationals, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, who were imprisoned for involvement in espionage activities against the Islamic Republic.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashouri were handed over to a British team at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on Wednesday to leave Iran after London paid its $530 million debt to Tehran, reports said.
Ashoori, who previously lived in southeast London with his family, was detained in August 2017 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for cooperating with Israel’s spy agency Mossad and two years for obtaining 33,000 euros in “illicit funds” nearly a year later.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, had been found guilty of plotting to orchestrate a soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic and has been in jail since 2016.
Back in October 2017, the prosecutor general of Tehran stated that she was being held for running “a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran.”
Both Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her employer had maintained she was simply visiting family while on vacation.
Britain has reportedly paid $530 million (400 million pounds) to Iran to settle a debt related to an unfulfilled military contract that dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Britain has delayed the payment for many years citing problems faced because of foreign sanctions against Iran.
However, Tehran has insisted the debt should be settled regardless of issues that exist between Iran and the West.
