FILE PHOTO: Roxanne Tahbaz holds a picture of her father during the protest. Roxanne Tahbaz staged a protest with Amnesty International outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Westminster, calling on the UK Government to increase efforts to bring her father, Morad Tahbaz, home. Morad, a wildlife conservationist and a US and UK national with an Iranian family background, has been arbitrarily jailed in Iran for more than four years. REUTERS./

LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) – The British government on Wednesday called on Iran to release environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American who also holds British citizenship, after his family said he had been returned to prison.

Tahbaz 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.

He was briefly released on furlough in March when two dual nationals, including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran. In July his lawyer was quoted as saying he had been granted bail.

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“The Tahbaz family have confirmed that Morad has been returned to Evin prison by the Iranian authorities,” British foreign office minister Tariq Ahmad said in a statement.

“We call on Iran to release Morad so he may re-join family in Tehran immediately. We will continue to work closely with our US partners to hold Iran to account, and to secure Morad’s permanent release and departure from Iran.”

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)