Iran: British Council worker Aras Amiri reportedly acquitted

Aras Amiri, a British Council employee detained in Iran, has been acquitted by the country’s supreme court, according to her lawyer. 

Hojjat Kermani told Emtedad News on Sunday that his client had been acquitted after a request for a retrial had rendered verdicts issued against her to be “illegal”. 

The 34-year-old Amiri was visiting relatives in Tehran in 2018 when she was detained for allegedly confessing to spying for the British government or “assembly and collusion against national security” - a charge she denies.

In May 2019, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison and lost an appeal three months later.

At the time, she wrote to then-chief justice and now president-elect Ebrahim Raisi, asking him to conduct an investigation into the false charges against her.

She said the reason she has been imprisoned was her refusal to spy for the Iranian intelligence services.

Acquittal welcomed

Last month, Amiri was released on bail to appeal her sentence, the Daily Telegraph reported. 

The British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, working in arts and culture, the English language, education, and civil society, said that Amiri’s role was to support and promote Iranian art in the UK. 

It said that she had travelled to Iran on a private trip to visit family, and not for work. 

Her acquittal was welcomed on social media by Ana Diamond, a British human rights activist who was detained by Iran in 2016 on charges of spying for foreign intelligence agencies. 

“Amazing news! Aras Amiri, former employee of the British Council, has been ACQUITTED after spending 3 years fighting a fabricated espionage case in Iran. Welcome home, Aras,” Diamond wrote.  

“Next, @FreeNazanin,” she added, referring to British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

In late April, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to a year in jail and banned from leaving Iran for a further 12 months. She has been held in the country since 2016, convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.