Iran “returned” to the UK in 2016 - British detained in Iran

Held in Iran in 2016, Iran-British Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe) was sentenced to prison for incitement for always denying that a British deputy announced Wednesday was “returning” to the UK.

“Nazanin is at Tehran Airport and is returning home.” The Labour Party, Tulip Siddiq, said on Twitter.

The Iranian state media confirmed that the woman was “transferred” to the British government of the conservative Boris Johnson.

The latter did not confirm the information for the time being, and the local media claimed that the retired engineer Anooosheh Ashoori, another citizen with dual citizenship, is returning with him. He was arrested in Iran when he visited his mother in August 2017 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage in favor of Israel.

In the morning, Johnson himself expressed hope, saying that the negotiations were in the final stage.

The 43-year-old Zaghari-Ratcliffe, project manager of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charitable branch of the news agency of the same name, was detained in Iran during a visit to Tehran in 2016 and visited his family.

She was accused of a conspiracy to overthrow the Islamic Republic, she was strongly denied and sentenced to 5 years in prison.

Since then, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and her relatives in the United Kingdom have constantly urged the British government to intervene on a diplomatic level to secure release and return. Last year, Ratcliffe triggered a 21-day hunger strike to warn of her situation.

- UK debt to Iran -

In June 2019, Zagari-Ratcliffe suffered a hunger strike for two weeks, after which he had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several days.

After serving her first sentence, she was again sentenced to one year in prison in April 2021, and another year for banning her departure to participate in rallies in 2009 in front of the Iranian Embassy in London.

And in October, the Iranian Ministry of Justice rejected the judicial appeal for fear of new imprisonment after being under house arrest at the parents' home in March 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, hopes arose that Iran would be released after the return of its British passport and disseminated information about the presence of a team of British negotiators in Tehran.

Relatives of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori reported that they were held hostage until Britain settled a debt of 400 million pounds (520 million dollars, 475 million euros) for the sale of defense materials dating back to Iran's Shah era, which was overthrown in 1979.

The administration of Boris Johnson has always avoided the arrest of these and others held in Iran for this debt.

However, Foreign Minister Liz Truss told BBC Radio on Wednesday that “it was a priority to pay debts legally owed to the Iranian authorities.”

Convincing that this is a separate issue of the liberation of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori, Trus justified the delay in debt repayment associated with the tank order canceled after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 to international sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program.

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