An Iranian court has added two years to the ten-year prison sentence of British national Craig Foreman, his family reported on Wednesday, citing his contact with the media. The decision was delivered without access to a lawyer or translator, according to the family’s spokesperson, who said Foreman was told he was being taken to see his legal representative but was instead brought before a judge. The couple, arrested in early 2025 while on a motorcycle journey through Iran, are serving sentences on espionage charges they deny. Britain’s foreign ministry said it was “urgently following up” with Iranian authorities over the reported extension.

Both Craig and Lindsay Foreman have been on a hunger strike for more than two months, with the husband now in his tenth week and the wife in her ninth, according to sources familiar with their condition. The couple are held in Evin prison and have been denied telephone contact and regular medical checks, the sources said. Lindsay Foreman is described as suffering from severe hand tremors, persistent dizziness, stomach pain, muscle weakness, and acute light sensitivity. Despite the presence of a nurse in the women’s ward, detainees report that she is not permitted to enter to examine hunger strikers, and the Foremans have not received medication and hygiene items delivered by the British ambassador a month ago. Two independent UN experts last month stated that the couple appeared to have been wrongfully detained and sentenced after proceedings that failed to meet basic fair-trial guarantees.

Viewed from Berlin, the Foreman case coincides with a separate but related security assessment. The German government has declined to comment publicly on a so-called “revenge list” published by Iranian state-linked media, which included the images of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other Western leaders. A deputy government spokesperson said Berlin would not lend credibility to the report by addressing it, while stressing that the chancellor’s protection remains at the highest level irrespective of current events. German security agencies are nonetheless examining indicators of possible reconnaissance, espionage, or attack preparations on German soil, the interior ministry told the Handelsblatt newspaper. Officials assess that Iran employs asymmetric methods—including intimidation of regime opponents abroad and mobilisation of allied groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas—but noted that the recent escalation in US-Iran hostilities has not led to a formal increase in the threat level, which was already considered high.

Tehran’s state-linked press has since expanded the scope of the threatened retaliation, with the daily Hamshahri writing of “organising revenge squads” to punish those it holds responsible for the war against Iran, a list it says extends beyond American and Israeli officials to include Arab and non-Arab figures as well as Iranian dissidents abroad. The framing, analysts in European capitals note, moves beyond propaganda into operational signalling. The Foreman family, meanwhile, has called the additional sentence a “flagrant abuse of the most basic rights,” and the British government faces renewed pressure to secure consular access and the couple’s release. The dossier remains active, with London pursuing the case through diplomatic channels and Berlin maintaining a posture of public restraint while security services continue their threat monitoring.