LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) – An Iranian-American environmentalist who was released from an Iranian prison has been taken back to jail, one of his daughters told a news conference in London on Monday.
Britain said on Wednesday that Morad Tahbaz, who also holds British citizenship, had been released from prison on furlough on the same day aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori left Iran to return to Britain.
“We’ve only just found out, before we started this afternoon, that he’s been returned to the prison,” his daughter Roxanne told a news conference at the British parliament, alongside Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Iranian Judiciary Postpones Court Date for Jailed Environmentalists
Britain was “urgently raising Morad’s case at the highest levels of the Iranian government”, a spokesperson said.
“He must be allowed to return to his family’s home in Tehran immediately, as the Iranian government committed to doing,” the spokesperson said.
Tahbaz, 66, was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “assembly and collusion against Iran‘s national security” and working for the United States as a spy.
“It’s been over four years now since my father was detained and my mother was put on a travel ban within Iran,” his daughter said.
“As you can imagine, my siblings and I are desperate to be reunited with our parents, and therefore I’m here today to ask the question of why my father is the only UK-born national who has been abandoned and left behind there.”
(Reporting by Kate Holton, Kylie MacLellan and Paul Sandle; Editing by Catherine Evans, Andrew Heavens and Alison Williams)
