British charity worker held in Iran for two months facing 'government toppling' charge

A British charity worker held in Iran for more than two months is facing charges she tried to "topple" the country's government.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was stopped at Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran with her daughter Gabriella on April 3 as she tried to return to the UK after a family holiday.

She is now being held in Kerman Prison while her two-year-old daughter, who has had her passport confiscated, stays with her grandparents more than 600 miles away.

In a statement the UK Foreign Office said: "We are urgently seeking information from the Iranian authorities on the reported accusations being made against Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

"We have raised this case repeatedly and at the highest levels and will continue to do so at every available opportunity.

"We have also been supporting Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family since we were first made aware of her arrest."

The accusations, reported by Iran's state-run news agency on Wednesday, mark the first official acknowledgement of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's detention.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency.

Her husband Richard Ratcliffe is in London, where the family live, and was forced to miss his daughter's second birthday while they are apart.