UK to consider special status for UK woman detained in Iran

Royal Coat of Arms of United Kingdom (Photo: Sodacan/ Wikipedia)

LONDON — Britain’s foreign secretary says he will meet with the husband of a British woman imprisoned in Iran to discuss offering her a special status to help secure her freedom.

Boris Johnson has apologized for suggesting that 38-year-old Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists when she was arrested last year.

While the dual British-Iranian citizen says she was simply visiting family, she was imprisoned for plotting the “soft toppling” of Iran’s government. The judiciary cited Johnson’s comments in threatening to double Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s five-year sentence.

Johnson told the House of Commons that he would discuss on Wednesday the possibility of giving Zaghari-Ratcliffe “diplomatic protection,” which would elevate her case to a legal dispute between Britain and Iran.

Richard Ratcliffe believes the move would help ministers act “more stridently” to support his wife.