Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on her way home to UK after six years in detention in Iran

Charity worker has been detained in Iran for six years.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is heading home to the UK after being detained for six years in Tehran. The British-Iranian aid worker left the country alongside Anousheh Ashouri, another British-Iranian national, earlier on Wednesday. The 43-year-old's local MP, Tulip Siddiq, tweeted a picture of Zaghari-Ratcliffe on the plane shortly after 1pm, saying that she was now "in the air and flying away from 6 years of hell in Iran".

https://twitter.com/TulipSiddiq/status/1504085551145787393 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. https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1504083934300229633 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