Freed from Iran, Zaghari-Ratcliffe returns to UK
STORY: British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is back in Britain.
She was released by Iran on Wednesday (March 16), along with fellow British-Iranian Anousheh Ashouri, after years spent in detention.
This video released earlier on Wednesday by Iranian news agency WANA was said to show Zaghari-Ratcliffe boarding a plane.
The video did not show her face. Reuters could not independently verify it.
A third dual-national Morad Tahbaz was released from prison in Iran on furlough, the UK government said.
The releases came after talks between Tehran and London about a long-standing $520million debt that Iran's clerical rulers said Britain owed the country.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Britain had been looking at ways to pay the debt, which related to the sale of battle tanks to the former Shah.
“This has been an appalling ordeal for Nazanin, Anousheh, Morad, and their families who have suffered greatly and I’m sure everybody across the UK is delighted that they have been released and will be celebrating that fact.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment.
She’d previously worked as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation - or TRF - a charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and Reuters.
The TRF said she was in Iran in a personal capacity, and not for work.
It and her family denied the legal charges.
Iran's judiciary said Ashouri spied for Israel. A source close to his family told Reuters that he had also left the country.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, spent years campaigning for her release.
“Well I suppose we can stop being a moment in history and start being a normal family again.”
