Iran Sentences British-Iranian Aid Worker to One Year in Jail

British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (Reuters)
British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (Reuters)
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Iran Sentences British-Iranian Aid Worker to One Year in Jail

British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (Reuters)
British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. (Reuters)

An Iranian Revolutionary court has sentenced British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a one-year jail term and she is banned from leaving the country for a year, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani told Emtedad news website on Monday.

"Nazanin Zaghari was sentenced to one year in prison and a one year ban from leaving the country on charges of propaganda against the republic," Kermani told the website.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

She was released from house arrest last month at the end of a five-year sentence, but immediately ordered back into court to face the new propaganda charges.

Kermani said he would appeal the new sentence within 21 days under Iranian law.

Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of media firm Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the charges.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent four years in jail before being released into house arrest in March 2020 during the coronavirus.



Romania Scrambles Fighter Jets Second Time This Week over Breach of Airspace

Two Romanian military jet pilots fly their F16 Falcons during a demo flight following the opening ceremony for the European F-16 Training Center, held at the 86th Air Base "Lieutenant Aviator Gheorghe Mociornita", in Borcea, Romania, 13 November 2023. (EPA)
Two Romanian military jet pilots fly their F16 Falcons during a demo flight following the opening ceremony for the European F-16 Training Center, held at the 86th Air Base "Lieutenant Aviator Gheorghe Mociornita", in Borcea, Romania, 13 November 2023. (EPA)
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Romania Scrambles Fighter Jets Second Time This Week over Breach of Airspace

Two Romanian military jet pilots fly their F16 Falcons during a demo flight following the opening ceremony for the European F-16 Training Center, held at the 86th Air Base "Lieutenant Aviator Gheorghe Mociornita", in Borcea, Romania, 13 November 2023. (EPA)
Two Romanian military jet pilots fly their F16 Falcons during a demo flight following the opening ceremony for the European F-16 Training Center, held at the 86th Air Base "Lieutenant Aviator Gheorghe Mociornita", in Borcea, Romania, 13 November 2023. (EPA)

Romania raised fighter jets early on Saturday for the second time this week after an unidentified object breached its airspace by the Black Sea, the Ministry of Defense said.

The small object was detected over the Black Sea moving toward Romania, a European Union and NATO member, at around 2:30 a.m, the ministry said in a statement.

Romania shares a 650-kilometer (400-mile) border with Ukraine and has previously complained over Russian drones entering its airspace as Moscow attacks Ukrainian targets along the Black Sea and Danube River. Fragments of Russian drones have also been repeatedly found on Romanian territory near the Ukrainian border.

Two F-18 jets of the Spanish Air Force and two F-16s of the Romanian Air Force were dispatched but did not spot the target, which disappeared from the radar, the ministry said.

Two Spanish F-18s and two Romanian F-16s also were dispatched on Thursday in a similar incident.