Female Iranian British Council worker is jailed for ten years in Tehran ‘after confessing’ to spying for the UK
- Gholamhossein Esmaili, a judiciary spokesman, announced sentencing Monday
- Esmaili said the woman was found to be responsible for ‘cultural infiltration’
- She was not identified and it is not clear if the woman holds British nationality
Iran said on Monday it had sentenced an Iranian woman to ten years prison for spying for Britain, as tension rises between Tehran and some Western countries over its nuclear and missile programmes.
‘An Iranian who was in charge of Iran desk in the British Council and was cooperating with Britain’s intelligence agency… was sentenced to 10 years in prison after clear confessions,’ Gholamhossein Esmaili, a judiciary spokesman, said on the state television.
Esmaili said the woman was in charge of projects for ‘cultural infiltration’ in Iran. He did not identify her, but said she was a student in Britain before being recruited by the British Council.
British council employee Aras Amiri, a 32-year-old Iranian national, was arrested in March last year in Iran. It is unclear if Amiri is the woman sentenced to ten years in jail
Gholamhossein Esmaili, a judiciary spokesman, announced the woman had been jailed on Monday
He did not specify whether she held British nationality.
British council employee Aras Amiri, a 32-year-old Iranian national, was arrested in March last year after visiting her home country to see her ailing grandmother before the Persian new year.
It is unclear if Amiri is the person sentenced this week, although Esmaili claimed the alleged spy had been in detention ‘for almost a year’.
Amiri’s cousin, Mohsen Omrani, told the Guardian last year she had been accused of colluding and acting against the national security.
The British Foreign Office did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. The British Council is Britain’s cultural agency overseas.
The arrest of Iranians accused of espionage has increased since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last year there had been ‘infiltration’ of Western agents in the country.
A British-Iranian woman held in Tehran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the ‘soft toppling’ of Iran’s government while traveling with her young daughter.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the charity arm of Thomson Reuters, was arrested in April 2016. Her sentence has been widely criticized.
Iran does not recognize dual nationality.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella. She is serving a five-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2016 of spying charges, which she denies