Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Given UK Passport Back As Release Hopes Rise

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her passport returned and a British negotiating team is in Iran trying to secure her release.

The British-Iranian mother has been detained since her arrest in 2016 on charges of plotting to overthrow the government – allegations she has always denied.

A £400 million debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s had been linked to the continued detention of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country.

This morning, her MP, Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, revealed that progress was finally being made in attempts to have her released.

She tweeted: “I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back. She is still at her family home in Tehran. I also understand that there is a British negotiating team in Tehran right now. I will keep posting updates as I get them.” 

According to her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani, when asked whether Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be released, said: “I am hopeful that we will have good news soon.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran as she prepared to fly back to the UK, having taken her daughter Gabriella – then not even two years old – to see relatives.

She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one year under house arrest.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, spent 21 days on hunger strike last year in London to draw attention to his wife’s case.

In a video posted in relation to the hunger strike, Elika Ashoori said she was at that time “extremely concerned” for her father’s health “as he approaches his 68th birthday”.

In December, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the £400 million that Britain owes Iran is a “legitimate debt” that the Government wants to pay.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, warned that the latest reports should be treated with caution as there had been “false dawn after false dawn” in the long-running process.

He said: “We sincerely hope these reports are correct.

“The detainees and their families have been suffering for years, and a resolution can’t come quickly enough.

“It’s been clear for a long time that the Iranian authorities have been targeting foreign nationals with spurious national security-related charges to exert diplomatic pressure.

“In the past we’ve had false dawn after false dawn over possible breakthroughs, so it’s only right to be cautious at the moment.”