According to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's lawyer, Hojjat Kermani, Iran has released the British-Iranian aid worker Sunday, after her five-year prison sentence for sedition.

Kermani told the Iranian website 'Emtedad' that “She was pardoned by Iran’s Supreme Leader last year, but spent the last year of her term under house arrest with electronic shackles tied to her feet. Now they’re cast off."

“She has been freed.”

Kermani added that a hearing for her second case has been scheduled at branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, however, it was not immediately clear whether she was allowed to leave Iran. 

In turn, the Iranian court set a date for her second case on March. 14, only hours after she was released from house arrest.

Kermani said “In this case, she is accused of propaganda against the Islamic Republic’s system for participating in a rally in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009 and giving interview to the BBC Persian TV channel at the same time.".

He hoped that “this case will be closed at this stage, considering the previous investigation.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

The CEO of Thomson Reuters Foundation,  Antonio Zappulla welcomed the news. He told AFP: "It's a positive development, let's put it this way, but it's also to a certain extent an expected development, because it's the end of a five year prison sentence, so she was due some sort of information, so some development was expected, and the fact that the ankle tag has come off is definitely welcome news."

Zappulla added that the situation remains under a dark cloud.

"She was hoping that the ankle tag would come off, so that was definitely a development that she would receive happily, but obviously we knew that there was this big cloud, this dark dark cloud over her head which is this second court case, but as I say she was anxious but she was in relatively good spirits."

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at an airport Apr. 2016 where she was set to head to the UK with her daughter to visit family.

She was later sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of sedition. Both her family and the foundation denied all charges.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released from jail March. 2020 and was placed under house arrest in Tehran amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in Iranian prisons. In turn, her movement waqs restriction and she was barred from leaving Iran.

Meanwhile, The UK's Foreign Minister Dominic Raab urged Tehran to release her following the official end of her five-year sentence.

On Twitter, Raab wrote: "We welcome the removal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's ankle tag, but Iran's continued treatment of her is intolerable. She must be allowed to return to the UK as soon as possible to be reunited with her family."