British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson did not make a gaffe when he commented about the activities of jailed Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Britain’s trade minister Liam Fox said on Tuesday.
Johnson told the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Nov. 1 that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching people journalism, a statement that the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organisation for which she works, said was incorrect.
“I don’t believe that it is a serious gaffe. I think people in the Iranian regime are using this as an excuse to hold a UK citizen in the most tenuous, if not illegal, circumstances,’’ Fox told newsmen.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment, was brought into court on Saturday, three days after Johnson’s remarks.
He was accused by a judge of spreading propaganda against the regime.
The charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe are denied by her family and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organisation that operates independently of Reuters News. (Reuters/NAN)
