Iran’s decision to press fresh charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is illegal and shows she is being held as a hostage, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has said.

He called on the British government to do everything possible to protect her, include demanding UK officials are allowed to attend her trial on Sunday.

Iranian judicial officials told Zaghari-Ratcliffe at a hearing on Tuesday that she was facing fresh charges. The British-Iranian dual national has already served four years of a five-year sentence, and is being held under a form of house arrest at her parents’ home in Tehran.

In a statement, Ratcliffe said: “It has become increasingly clear the past months that Nazanin is a hostage, held as leverage against a UK debt. It is important that the UK government does everything to protect her and others as Iran’s hostage diplomacy continues to escalate.

“This starts with the British embassy insisting it is able to attend Nazanin’s trial on Sunday, and that the UK’s diplomatic protection is treated with respect.

“While we felt close to release these past few months, yesterday Nazanin was taken to the revolutionary court for a reopened second court case. Her trial will be on Sunday. The case is illegal under Iranian law, as is the fact Nazanin was not already released back in March.”

Ratcliffe added: “There is only so much abuse one person can take. Nazanin was asking today has she not had her share? The government needs to think about who will be taken next, and whether soft diplomacy stops the spread of state hostage-taking.”

He said his wife was an emotional wreck, totally drained, and suffering from claustrophobia.

He also disclosed the second charge against her was a revived charge of propaganda against the regime, a charge first levied against her by the Iranian prosecutors in October 2017, and then confirmed in the eyes of the Iranian media when Boris Johnson mistakenly said in November 2017 that she had only been training journalists.

Johnson, the foreign secretary at the time, made the error at a Commons select committee hearing, and he subsequently insisted she had only been in Iran at the time of her arrest in April 2016 to see her parents.

Explaining the origins of the second charge against her, Ratcliffe said in his statement the propaganda charge was “first raised against Nazanin in October 2017, was subsequently blamed on the then foreign secretary, now prime minister Boris Johnson’s comments in November 2017 and reassigned to Judge Abolghasem Salavati, the judge handling her case. Following the foreign secretary’s trip to Iran in December 2017 this case was then closed. However, it was reopened again in May 2018.”

Ratcliffe also stressed Johnson’s direct remarks at the select committee were not included in the evidence file, even though that may change at the hearing. He said it had always been feared the second charges would be pressed, and that they appear to have come at a time of extra pressure on British-Iranian dual nationals in Iran.

He said: “The latest escalation from Iran’s judiciary can be seen as an attempt to press the UK to speed up how it is dealing with the parallel issue of a debt,” referring to a £400m debt owed to Iran by the UK, which was formally acknowledged last week by the defence secretary, Ben Wallace.

Ratcliffe said: “Behind closed doors we have been discussing with the UK Foreign Office its strategic approach to Iran’s hostage-taking. Currently, this is not working at keeping people safe, but is leading to more risk.”

The Guardian