The trial of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on Sunday is a rehash of three-year-old allegations accusing her of spreading propaganda against the Iranian regime, her husband said on Wednesday.
Her lawyer viewed the evidence against her after the charity worker was taken before Iran’s notorious “hanging judge”, Abolghassem Salavati, by members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“It looks to have been suddenly taken out of the cupboard unchanged,” said her husband, Richard Ratcliffe. “No new documents relate to the past two years.”
Mr Ratcliffe and the lawyer want the UK to press Iranian authorities to allow British embassy staff to attend the case on Sunday, which could return Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe to jail.
She has been allowed to live with her parents in Iran since the spring on temporary release while wearing an electronic tag.
Her family said that they expected a new legal threat to Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s freedom but not until early next year, as her final release date neared.
New charges a contrivance to resolve longstanding debt?
They said they were shocked by the dramatic escalation, which showed she was being treated as a hostage by the Iranian regime.
Mr Ratcliffe said that he believed the move was an attempt to push the UK into swiftly resolving an issue over a £380 million debt linked to an arms deal with Iran, which was aborted with the overthrow of the shah in 1979.
The families of other detained British-Iranian dual nationals have also said their relatives are being held as bargaining chips to force the UK to settle the debt.
The latest chapter in the long-running debt saga is in the UK courts, with authorities saying that sanctions against Iran make it hard to repay the money.
“It has become increasingly clear the past months that Nazanin is a hostage, held as leverage against a UK debt,” Mr Ratcliffe said.
“Yesterday hit us hard. We had long been warning the government that the closer we got to the end of Nazanin’s sentence, the more there was a risk of Iran opening again a second case to threaten holding her more.
“But still today it was a surprise. We had been bracing ourselves for something if we went past Christmas – not here and now.”
The prospect of a new trial was first raised in October 2017, the month before then foreign secretary Boris Johnson wrongly told MPs that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran to train journalists rather than visit her parents with her young daughter.
The case was closed after Mr Johnson visited Iran in December 2017, but was reopened the following year.
But Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had not been in front of Judge Salavati in connection with the case since May 2018.
She now fears a return to prison after being held since April 2016 on what her family and supporters maintain are trumped-up charges.
“There is only so much abuse one person can take,” said her husband. “Nazanin was asking today, has she not had her share?
“The government needs to think about who will be taken next, how soft diplomacy stops the spread of state hostage taking.”
Britain's Foreign Office said the new charges were “indefensible and unacceptable".
"We have been consistently clear that she must not be returned to prison," a spokesman said.
