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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)
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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.

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France Warns That North Korean Troops Fighting in Ukraine Would Be an Escalation

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
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France Warns That North Korean Troops Fighting in Ukraine Would Be an Escalation

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)

The involvement of North Korean regular troops to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine would be a serious escalation of the war, France and Ukraine's foreign ministers said at a joint press conference in Kyiv on Saturday.

France's Jean-Noel Barrot, who was making his first trip to Ukraine since becoming foreign minister in September, is also set to visit the east of the country on Sunday, where France will finance new two new centers for the protection of children impacted by the war.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused North Korea on Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and of preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow's war effort, although NATO chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang's presence at this stage.

"It would be serious and push the conflict into a new stage, an additional escalatory stage," Barrot said in Kyiv, adding that such a move would signal that Moscow was struggling in the war.

His Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, said the risk of escalation from the move was "huge."

"This is a huge threat of further escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. There is a big risk of it growing out of its current scale and borders."

Earlier this week, Zelenskiy presented his "victory plan" which he said would enable Ukraine to end the war no later than next year. The first step of this plan was unconditional NATO membership for Ukraine.

France's foreign minister said Paris was open to the idea of an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, but that talks would continue on the subject with allies.

"Regarding the invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, we are open to it and it's a discussion that we are having with our partners," Barrot said.