The family of jailed charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will ask the United Nations to declare the latest Iranian case against her as illegal as she awaits her fate after a new secret trial.
Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said that supporters should “presume the worst” after she was accused of spreading propaganda against the regime on Sunday in a case which could see her returned to Evin prison after just completing a five-year sentence.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, will have to wait a week to learn of any new punishment following a trial over re-heated claims that she attended a demonstration outside Iran’s embassy in London 12 years ago and spoke to the BBC's Persian service.
Mr Ratcliffe has always said that his wife has been held since April 2016 because of the continuing diplomatic wrangle between the UK and Iran, including the non-payment of a £400 million ($556m) debt over an aborted arms deal dating back decades.
“We are caught in the middle of horse-trading and diplomatic wrangling and the law is a protection in that space,” Mr Ratcliffe told the BBC. “That means going to the UN to declare this new case illegal.”
He said that his wife slept better last night after the one-day trial and expressed relief that she would not have to see her interrogators and the judge again as she “awaits the fate that comes”.
Medical experts warned last week that she required urgent psychiatric treatment because of the conditions she has been kept in. She spent most of her five-year sentence at Evin jail.
She was under effective house arrest confined to her parents’ Tehran home for the final year of her sentence wearing an ankle tag.
The charity that commissioned the medical assessment said it had “grave concerns” that she could be returned to Evin prison or put under house arrest.
A report by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims said she has depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder because of the way she has been treated.
Rupert Skilbeck, director of human rights group Redress, said: “This keeps her in a constant state of fear and uncertainty, and prolongs the severe psychological and physical suffering she has endured as a result of her torture and ill treatment in Iran.”
“Nazanin has never received a fair trial in Iran, and is innocent of the allegations made against her. Her detention has always been illegal under international law. The charge must be dismissed and she must be allowed to return to the UK to be with her family,” he said.
Mr Ratcliffe has said that he fears his wife would receive the maximum sentence in the latest case amid concerns of a new five-year term.
“I have never seen anyone get acquitted from the revolutionary court, I have only seen people get the maximum sentence,” he said. “I think we should presume the worst.”
But he said he hoped that the time she has already served would be taken into account and that she would spend any remaining time at her parents’ home.
He said he was cross that nobody from the British Embassy accompanied her to the court out of concern not to inflame the situation. The UK government was not doing enough to help her, he said.
"It's still at the level of talk rather than action," he said. "If you want to protect someone, you do need to stand next to them in a very visible way."
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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