Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s legal team has accused the Government of dragging its feet over repaying a £400m debt to Iran.
Lawyers acting for the British-Iranian woman have written to the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to demand a meeting over the issue of the debt dating back to a sale of British tanks to the-then shah of Iran in the 1970s.
Her husband Richard Ratcliffe has suggested that the mother-of-one is being used as collateral by Tehran to force the UK into settling the multimillion-pound dispute.
In a letter to Mr Wallace, sent earlier this month, lawyers expressed “grave concerns” about the UK’s “failure” to repay the cash.
“This failure continues to blight UK-Iranian relations and remains an intractable obstacle to Nazanin’s long-overdue release,” it said.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s legal team also suggested that concerns about US President Donald Trump ’s hardline stance on Iran was a factor in the UK’s actions.
Requesting a meeting at the “earliest convenience”, the lawyers said: “There is still hope for an imminent positive ending for the Ratcliffe family, but this requires you to stand by your words of 2014 and take charge of the actions of International Military Services to find a way to honour the UK’s legal obligations to Iran (however unpalatable to the current US Administration)
“It also requires the UK Government to have the courage to stand up to Iran for its abusive treatment of Nazanin (and other innocent British nationals), and to protect their right to return to England and be reunited with their families.”
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Iran since April 2016 on spying charges, which she denies.
She was released from prison during the coronavirus pandemic but remains under house arrest at her parents’ house in Tehran.
The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment.
