UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she is appalled by the 10-year prison sentence handed to British nationals Lindsay and Craig Foreman in Iran over allegations of espionage.
Ms Cooper on Thursday condemned the sentence as “totally unjustifiable”, saying her government would continue to press for the couple's release.
Iran accuses the Foremans of gathering information in several parts of the country. They are being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
“We will pursue this case relentlessly with the Iranian government until we see Craig and Lindsay Foreman safely returned to the UK and reunited with their family,” Ms Cooper said.
The couple, from East Sussex, were arrested while on a motorcycle world tour on January 3 last year. They have always denied the allegations.
Joe Bennett, Ms Foreman's son, said they had appeared at a three-hour trial on October 27 last year but were not allowed to present a defence.
“We have seen no evidence to support the charge of espionage,” he said. The family was deeply concerned about the couple's welfare and the lack of transparency in the judicial process, he added.
Mr Bennett on Wednesday said that US-Iranian talks in Geneva this week were an opportunity to seek the release of his mother and other foreign detainees.
The talks concluded on Tuesday with an agreement reached on the “guiding principles” of a nuclear deal, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led his country's delegation.
“For any country that engages in peace talks, hostage negotiations should also be a part of it. It shouldn’t just be peace talks [without addressing] human rights violations and hostage-taking,” Mr Bennett told The National.
Ms Foreman has admitted to “naive” mistakes when deciding to travel to the country.
Speaking to the BBC from the prison on Wednesday before the sentencing was confirmed, Ms Foreman said the couple had tried to respect Iran's legal process.
“We have done what we can to be respectful of their system, to be patient with the legal process, believing that our innocence will prevail – but it doesn’t seem to be the case,” she said.
“We wanted to respect their very strong belief that they don’t want foreign interference and not refer to international law or human rights law.
“But I’ve read their constitution and so I have referred only to their own internal Islamic Republic constitutional law in an attempt to say: even in your own system, your own judicial system, you’re in violation of the laws, to try and do anything to help us get out of this situation,” she said.
She added she had travelled to Iran “as part of a global initiative to focus on the good, to focus on finding unity in humanity, and that hasn’t changed”.
In a short clip broadcast on Thursday, she said: “In fact, if anything, my desire to find what connects us is even greater.”
Earlier this month, Ms Foreman spoke to ITV News by phone from the prison, telling the British broadcaster that the couple believed they had the correct documents to be in Iran, despite the Foreign Office warning citizens against travelling to the country.
In January, Mr Bennett was joined by former Iran detainee Anoosheh Ashoori and Richard Ratcliffe, who fought a public campaign to have his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed by the Tehran regime, at 10 Downing Street to deliver a petition calling on the UK government to do more to free the couple.
The petition had 70,000 signatures, “which is a clear sign there is a strong belief that this is nothing but an arbitrary detention”, Mr Bennett said.
