The Iranian-British Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, detained since 2016 in Iran, where she had been convicted of sedition, which she has always denied, is on her way back to the United Kingdom, announced Wednesday March 16 a British MP. “Nazanin is now in the air, leaving six years of hell in Iran”, said on Twitter Tulip Siddiq, Labor MP for the constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn (North London), where Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard Ratcliffe lives.
In Tehran, official Iranian media confirmed that the Iranian-Briton had been ” delivery “ to the British government. The latter also announced on Wednesday the release of a second detainee. Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired Iranian-British engineer arrested in August 2017 while visiting his mother and sentenced to ten years in prison for spying for Israel. “I can confirm that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori will return to the UK today” and “they will be reunited with their families later today”claimed on Twitter the head of diplomacy Liz Truss.
“They have faced hardships that no family should ever experience, and it is a moment of great relief”she added in a communicatedgreeting “the result of tenacious and creative British diplomacy”.
A paid debt
Their release came when London announced that it had settled an old debt with Tehran of nearly 400 million pounds (476 million euros), without establishing a link between the two cases. Iran confirms receipt of debt settlement.
This debt “was settled in full respect of UK and international sanctions (…) and these funds will be reserved only for the purchase of humanitarian goods”, assured Liz Truss. In the morning, the British Foreign Secretary told the BBC that she had made a priority “to ensure that we repay the debt that we rightfully owe to the Iranian authorities”.
On several occasions, Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and father of their little girl, Gabriella, had denounced that his wife was the“hostage” of a sinister political game concerning this debt contracted by the United Kingdom within the framework of an arms contract. He had also gone on two hunger strikes to raise awareness about the fate of his companion. The last lasted twenty-one days, in the fall of 2021.
Accused of conspiracy
Aged 43, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had recovered her passport on Tuesday, raising the hope of an early release. Project manager for the Thomson Archyde.com Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the news agency of the same name, she was arrested in 2016 in Tehran, where she came to visit her family. She had been accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran, which she vehemently denies, and sentenced to five years in prison.
After serving her sentence, she was again sentenced, at the end of April 2021, to one year in prison for participating in a rally outside the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009. In October 2021, she had lost her appeal, causing her relatives to fear an imminent return to prison, from which she had been authorized to leave with an electronic bracelet in March 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A dozen Westerners detained
As the Islamic Republic of Iran detains more than a dozen Western passport holders, Liz Truss announced that London will continue to work for the departure from Iran of Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American also with British nationality, sentenced to ten years in prison for “Conspiracy with America” and who was released on parole.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed that a team of UK negotiators was working in Tehran to secure the release of several dual nationals.