British citizens who are wrongfully arrested and tortured overseas will have 'no legal right to consular assistance' or protection from the state, the Foreign Office has announced.
In a letter to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's lawyers, the Government said it was under no legal obligation to provide assistance to citizens who were falsely accused of a crime while travelling with a British passport.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 41, a charity worker with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at Tehran airport as she was returning home to London with her then 22-month-old daughter, Gabriella, following a family visit in 2016.
The British-Iranian dual national was jailed for five years on allegations that she plotted to overthrow the Iranian government.