Family: Iran rejects detained British-Iranian woman’s appeal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A British-Iranian woman detained in Iran while on a trip with her toddler daughter has exhausted all chance of having her five-year prison sentence overturned in court, her family said Monday.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is one of several dual nationals held in Iran by hard-liners in the country’s judiciary and security services on espionage charges, likely to be used as bargaining chips in future negotiations with the West.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, found out this weekend her final appeal to Iran’s supreme court had been denied, her husband Richard Ratcliffe said in a statement.
Ratcliffe said he wants the British government to publicly call for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release, rebut the Iranian spy allegations against her and have the British ambassador in Tehran visit her in prison.