A YOUNG woman banned from the Iranian chess team — allegedly for not wearing a headscarf at an international competition — has defected to the US, a Tehran news agency reported yesterday.

The semi-official ISNA said that Dorsa Derakhshani refused to wear a hijab during a February competition in Gibraltar and joined the US national team.

But the Mehr agency quoted Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, president of Iran’s chess federation, as saying that Sorsa had changed her national federation to the United States, rather than join the national team.

He said that Derakhshani was not actually a member of the national team, having played for Iran only once in 2014.

She had left Tehran and moved to Barcelona in 2015 after receiving an invitation by a chess club that also supported her studies, according to ISNA.

Her brother Borna Derakhshani was also reportedly banned from the Iranian team for playing against Israeli grandmaster Alexander Huzman at February’s competition in Gibraltar.

Shohreh Bayat, the general secretary of Iran’s chess federation, said Dorsa was now studying in the US, according to Tasnim, another semi-official Iranian news agency.