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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years imprisonment in Iran in 2016, has been told she will stand trial on fresh charges next Monday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released to house arrest in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, was also told she would be returned to Evin prison after the hearing.

The move comes a day after it emerged that a UK court hearing on a debt owed to Iran had been postponed for six months. It was due to start on 3 November.

Both countries formally deny there is any connection between the debt case and the retention of British-Iranian dual nationals in Tehran jails, but officials privately acknowledge that the two issues have been linked. British sources said the postponement was sought by the Iranian legal team, but that has not been confirmed.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been told she will face Abolqasem Salavati, a hardline judge who has been subjected to sanctions by the EU and the US.

Zaghari-Ratcliffes five-year sentence is due to expire next spring, but the fresh charges open the possibility of years more in jail.

3 April 2016

Arrest in Tehran

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is arrested at Imam Khomeini airport as she is trying to return to Britain after a holiday visiting family with her daughter, Gabriella.

2016

Release campaign begins

9 September 2016

Sentenced

November 2016

Hunger strike

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's health deteriorates after she spends several days on hunger strike in protest at her imprisonment.

24 April 2017

Appeal fails

1 November 2017

Boris Johnson intervenes

Boris Johnson, then Foreign Secretary, tells a parliamentary select committee "When we look at what [she] was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism". Four days after his comments, Zaghari-Ratcliffe is returned to court, where his statement is cited in evidence against her. Her employers, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, deny that she has ever trained journalists, and her family maintain she was in Iran on holiday. Johnson is eventually forced to apologise for the "distress and anguish" his comments cause the family.

12 November 2017

Health concerns

Her husband reveals that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has fears for her health after lumps had been found in her breasts that required an ultrasound scan, and that she was now on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

3 August 2018

Hunt meets husband

23 August 2018

Temporary release

She is granted a temporary three-day release from prison.

14 January 2019

Hunger strike

8 March 2019

Diplomatic protection

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, takes the unusual step of granting her diplomatic protection a move that raises her case from a consular matter to the level of a dispute between the two states.

17 May 2019

Travel warning

The UK upgrades its travel advice to British-Iranian dual nationals, for the first time advising against all travel toIran. The advice also urges Iranian nationals living in the UK to exercise caution if they decide to travel to Iran.

15 June 2019

Hunger strike in London

Richard Ratcliffe joins his wife in a new hunger strike campaign. He fasts outside the Iranian embassy in London as she begins a third hunger strike protest in prison.

29 June 2019

Hunger strike ends

Zaghari-Ratcliffe ends her hunger strike by eating some breakfast. Her husband also ends his strike outside the embassy.

17 July 2019

Moved to mental health ward

According to her husband,Zaghari-Ratcliffewas moved from Evin prison to the mental ward of Imam Khomeini hospital, where Irans Revolutionary Guards have prevented relatives from contacting her.

11 October 2019

Daughter returns to London

Zaghari-Ratcliffe's five year old daughter Gabriella, who has lived with her grandparents in Tehran and regularly visited her mother in jail over the last three years, returns to London in order to start school.

17 March 2020

Temporary release

Amid the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, she is temporarily released from prison, but will be required to wear an ankle brace and not move more than 300 metres from her parents home.

8 September 2020

New charges

Iranian state media reports that she will appear in court to face new and unspecified charges. In the end, a weekend court appearance on a new charge of waging propaganda against the state that could leave her incarcerated for another 10 years is postponed without warning, leading Zaghari-Ratcliffe to say "People should not underestimate the level of stress. People tell me to calm down. You dont understand what it is like. Nothing is calm."

28 October 2020

Return to prison threatened

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is told she is to stand trial on fresh charges and will be returning to prison after the hearing.

On Tuesday her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, spoke to the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, and called on the UK to assert its right to consular access so that British officials could attend the new trial and visit his wife.

Iran does not recognise dual national status. Raab assured Ratcliffe that the UKs diplomatic push was ongoing and that the government did not judge it time to change strategy.

Ratcliffe said: We disagreed on this. Seclusion of the victim, with bouts of conspicuous cruelty in the face of decisions to wait, are key pillars of hostage taking. Both must be challenged robustly if British citizens are going to be protected from hostage diplomacy by Iran or others.

He added: I do think that if shes not home for Christmas, theres every chance this could run for years. So I really hope theres something we are not being told, as on the face of it the governments response seems disastrous.[Its] just extraordinary that they wont change course.

Ratcliffe said a court summons was delivered to his wife by two very large IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] guards who came to her parents door. They told her that she should pack a bag with her for Monday, and should make sure she brings with her all her clothes and necessary medications, as she will be going back to prison after her court appearance.

Ratcliffe recalled a number of emotional telephone calls with his wife, who described herself as an emotional wreck.

Tell me every day that I wont be taken back in. This is my nightmare. Tell me that the only way to go now is to come home and not backwards, not after four years and eight months. Someone can help me, surely? she said, according to Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe said the court summons came after months of uncertainty and anguish, and he described his wifes release with an electronic tag as a cat-and-mouse game by the Iranian authorities.

Nazanin is under effective house arrest unable to go anywhere, or have anyone dare visit. Even close friends fear the association. Since her last court appearance she has been harassed by the Revolutionary Guards on average at least once a week. She is reminded repeatedly that while she might go home, she also might soon be back in prison, he said.

Tulip Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn where Zaghari-Ratcliffe lives, said: Nazanin has once again been treated with utter contempt, and I am extremely concerned about her future and wellbeing. The fact that she has been told to pack a bag for prison ahead of her court hearing doesnt fill me with confidence that this will be anything close to a fair trial.

The timing of this development alongside the postponement of the court hearing about the UKs historic debt to Iran raises serious concerns. I can only hope that there is work going on behind the scenes to resolve the debt quickly because we seem to be going in completely the wrong direction and Nazanin, as ever, is paying the price. The foreign secretary must assert the UKs right to consular access and ensure that UK officials are present at Nazanins trial.

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to stand trial on fresh charges in Iran next week - The Guardian