UK PM Boris Johnson lashes out as Iran extends jail sentence of British-Iranian charity worker

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has to spend another year in prison after completing a five-year sentence in Tehran in March over propaganda charges

British PM Boris Johnson slammed the move, saying his government would ‘redouble our efforts’ to get her home

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British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Photo: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe via AP

Published: 10:16pm, 26 Apr 2021Updated: 1:35am, 27 Apr 2021

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday criticised Iran after a British-Iranian charity worker was sentenced to another year in jail on charges of propaganda.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, completed a five-year sentence in Tehran in March, after being accused of plotting against the state, a charge she strenuously denies. A court has now given her another one-year jail term and a one-year ban on leaving Iran, the BBC reported.

Johnson said his government would “redouble our efforts” to get her home with her husband and young daughter in London. “I don’t think it is right at all that Nazanin should be sentenced to any more time in jail,” he said in a broadcast interview on Monday.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the decision “totally inhumane and wholly unjustified”.

Richard Ratcliffe, husband of imprisoned Nazanin, poses during a vigil outside the Iranian Embassy in London on January 16, 2017. File Photo: AP

Nazanin’s lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, said she was put on trial for “participating in a rally outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009”. He added she was “sentenced to one year in prison and a one year ban on leaving the country”.

“The verdict is still preliminary and we are appealing within the legal deadline of 20 days from today,” Hojjat said.