It's been 6 long years – and I can't believe I can FINALLY share this photo.
Nazanin is now in the air flying away from 6 years of hell in Iran.
My heart goes out to Gabriella and Richard, as her long journey back home to them gets closer by the minute.#NazaninIsFree ❤️ pic.twitter.com/BzEEBP840C
— Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) March 16, 2022
It is not known if Zaghari-Ratcliffe is flying to another country before she arrives back in the UK.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also confirmed Ashouri had also been released.
I can confirm Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori will return to the UK today, and Morad Tahbaz has been released from prison on furlough. They will be reunited with their families later today.
We will continue to work to secure Morad's departure from Iran.
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) March 16, 2022
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 when visiting family in Iran with her daughter Gabriella.
The aid worker, who was working as a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was jailed for five years on charges of plotting against the regime.
The case was complicated after a blunder made by then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who told a House of Commons select committee Nazanin was “simply teaching people journalism” – a statement her family and her employer both said was untrue.
Three days after Johnson’s statement to a parliamentary committee, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was summoned before a court, where Johnson’s comments were cited as proof that she was engaged in “propaganda against the regime”.
She received a further sentence last April but has spent the past year on parole at her parents’ home in Tehran.
Her release will be welcomed by her husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lives with their six-year-old daughter Gabriella in Hampstead, London.
He had campaigned for her release, including by staging a hunger strike outside Downing Street in October last year.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was “an incredible moment” for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family after an “unimaginable ordeal”.
On Tuesday, Johnson announced a £400m debt owed to Iran over missing tanks had been settled.
However, government officials have said the two events should not be linked.
Speaking to the BBC this morning, Truss said the debt was “legitimate” and that the government was “looking for ways to pay” it.
It’s understood Iran will be permitted to use the money for humanitarian spending only.
Related Links
- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: husband ends hunger strike after promise to detained wife
- UK to pay 400m to Iran to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe jailed for another year in Iran over propaganda activities