TEHRAN: Iran has jailed a British dual national convicted of spying for Israel and upheld the sentence of a British Council staffer for “cultural infiltration”, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

Anousheh Ashouri, a woman with British and Iranian citizenship, got 10 years in prison for feeding information to Israel’s Mossad spy agency, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said.

The latest Iranian national with a Western passport to be detained in the Islamic republic, she was also handed a two-year prison term for receiving 33,000 euros ($36,600) in illicit funds from Israel and ordered to pay the same amount in fines.

Her sentence came as Iran’s judiciary confirmed a 10-year jail sentence against British Council staffer Aras Amiri for “cultural infiltration”.

Amiri was “sentenced to 10 years in jail... and she is already serving her term. This verdict has been upheld by the court,” said Esmaili.

“This person... was identified by us because of her cultural infiltration in society through arts and her widespread activities,” the judiciary spokesman added.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported Amiri’s original sentence on May 13, saying she had “made a straightforward confession”.

At the time, Esmaili said she had been tasked with drawing up and managing cultural “infiltration” projects.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2019