Iran announced on Monday that three dual nationals and a foreigner held in the country have been indicted on unknown charges, part of a series of detentions in the wake of last year’s nuclear deal with world powers.
The four, who have ties to Britain, Canada and the United States, all are believed to have been detained by hard-liners in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The reasons for their arrests remain unclear, though the husband of one of them says his family was told by the Guard that she would be released if the British government agreed to their demands.
Iran’s official judiciary news agency Mizan quoted Tehran’s prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, naming the four charged as:
— Homa Hoodfar , an Iranian-Canadian woman who is a retired professor at Montreal’s Concordia University;
— Siamak Namazi , an Iranian-American businessman who has advocated for closer ties between the two countries and whose father is also held in Tehran;
— Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe , an Iranian-British woman who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency; and
— Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon who has done work for the American government .
The four were arrested in connection with separate cases over the past year. Family members and representatives of the four say they did nothing wrong.
Dowlatabadi’s statement did not elaborate on the charges, though Iranian media previously accused Zaghari-Ratcliffe of plotting a “soft toppling” of the government and alleged that Zakka was a spy. He said another seven people faced charges related to the unrest that surrounded the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election.
Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, meaning those detained cannot receive consular assistance.

Source: Arab News