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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Pippa Crerar

Brits still locked up in Iran's jails - terrified they will never return home

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is returning home to her husband and daughter after being detained for six years in Tehran.

Anousheh Ashoori, Morad Tahbaz and Mehran Raoof are British dual nationals still detained in Iran.

Here is everything we know about them.

Anoosheh Ashoori

Anoosheh Ashoori was arrested in August 2017 when he went to Iran to visit his elderly mother.

Moments before he was snatched off the streets in Tehran, blindfolded and pushed into the back of a car.

The retired engineer, who is a dual British-Iranian national, was sentenced to 10 years after being convicted of spying for Israel, despite never having set foot there.

Anoosheh, 68, was held in the notorious Evin prison. In 2020 he told Sky News he feared that his children would no longer recognise him. He has also been released.

Morad Tahbaz

Morad Tahbaz, a British-American, was among a group of conservationists who were accused of espionage after using cameras to track endangered species.

They had been researching endangered animals including the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, in work linked to the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation.

Morad Tahbaz is an environmental conservationist who was imprisoned in 2018 (internet)

Born in Hammersmith, West London, but also holding Iranian citizenship, 66-year-old Morad was sentenced to 10 years in prison back in 2019 for “contacts with the US enemy government”.

He was released on furlough, meaning he will be under house arrest with his family in Tehran.

Mehran Raoof

Mehran Raoof was arrested in October 2020 (Facebook)

Mehran Raoof, a left-wing labour rights activist, was arrested in October 2020 and after a trial held behind closed doors, was jailed for 10 years.

According to Amnesty he was being held in solitary confinement in Evin.

He remains in prison with the UK government understood to be pressing for his release.

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