Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released after being held in Iran for five years. International news agencies reported this on Sunday. The 43-year-old woman, who was working for a Thomson Reuters charity when she was arrested, was in an Iranian prison for four years. She spent the last year of her sentence under house arrest. British parliamentarian Tulip Siddiq and relatives of Zaghari-Ratcliffe spoke Assures her The electronic ankle strap has been removed.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in 2016 at the airport in the capital, Tehran. She was about to return to the UK with her daughter after a family visit. Iranian authorities accused her of plotting a coup and sentenced her to five years in prison. Critics say Zaghari-Ratcliffe is innocent and detained due to diplomatic tensions between London and Tehran.
It appears Zaghari-Ratcliffe has not yet been fully released. Her lawyer, Hajjah Karmani, told Reuters news agency that she must submit a report to the court next Sunday to bring her another charge. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab calls this new recall Sunday “unacceptable”. “Iran continues to put Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family in a cruel and painful ordeal.”
The arrest of Zaghari-Ratcliffe sparked a sensation in the UK at the time. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then Secretary of State, inadvertently escalated her case in 2017. He had said that Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran “did nothing more than teach journalism.” Three days later, Zaghari accused Ratcliffe in Iran of “conducting propaganda against the state.”
