World News | Iranian TV: British-Iranian Dual National Faces New Charge

Tehran, Sep 8 (AP) Iran's state TV, citing an unnamed official, announced on Tuesday that British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is facing a new charge.

The report did not elaborate beyond saying that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has appeared before a branch of the country's Revolutionary Court in Tehran, where she was first sentenced in 2017. It said she appeared in court on Tuesday morning.

Also Read | China Confirms 5 Missing Arunachal Pradesh Youths ‘Have Been Found on Chinese Side’; Procedure to Bring Them Back to India Underway.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been released from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic after serving nearly all of her five-year sentence.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Her family says she was in Iran to visit family, denying that she was plotting against Iran. She was accused of plotting the “soft toppling” of Iran's government.

Also Read | Brazil Independence Day 2020 Celebrations: Hundreds Dance Maskless on Street in Rio de Janerio; Social Distancing Norms Go For a Toss.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.

The new charges come after Zaghari-Ratcliffe family's linked her detention to Iran's negotiations with the British government over 400 million pounds settlement (USD 530 million) held by London, a payment the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered.

Tehran has denied that her detention was linked to the negotiations. The new charges could be an attempt to gain new leverage in the negotiations.

Iran has been hit hard by the virus early this year, becoming the worst-affected country in the Middle East. Since then, it has reported more than 391,000 cases and 22,542 deaths. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)