Tehran sentenced on Monday an Iranian woman to ten years in jail for spying for Britain.
“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.
Esmaili said the woman had been in custody for almost a year. He did not specify whether she held British nationality.
The British Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a Reuters email requesting comment. The British Council is Britain’s cultural agency overseas.
The arrest of Iranians accused of espionage has increased since supreme leader 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.
