Woman of Iranian-British nationals detained in Iran since 2016 will return to the UK

Nassan Zakari-Radcliffe and daughter Gabriella released from prison for three days on August 23, 2018 in Damascus (Iran) – Free Nazan Campaign / AFP / Files

Nassan’s Zakari-Radcliffe, an Iranian-British dual citizen, has been detained in Iran since 2016, where he was jailed for treason, a charge he has always denied, “he goes home” on Wednesday (16). ) A British MP.

Labor MP Tulip Siddiqui tweeted, “Nassan is at the Tehran airport and is returning home.”

Iranian state media have confirmed that Nassan was “handed over” to the British government by Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The information has not yet been officially confirmed, and the newspaper reports that he returned with another citizen with dual citizenship. Spying on behalf of Israel.

A few hours ago, Boris Johnson expressed his confidence and said talks were in the final stages.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, project director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained during a trip to Tehran in 2016 to visit his family.

She was charged with plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which she vehemently denied and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Since then, her husband Richard Radcliffe and relatives in the UK have worked tirelessly with the British government to secure diplomatic action to free her and repatriate her. Last year, Radcliffe went on a 21-day hunger strike to raise awareness of the situation.

– British debt to Iran

In June 2019, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe went on a two-week hunger strike and was later hospitalized for several days in the psychiatric ward.

After serving his first sentence, he was again sentenced in April 2021 to one year in prison and banned from leaving the country for participating in a protest outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009.

In October, an Iranian judge rejected a judicial appeal that raised fears of a new prison sentence after he was placed under house arrest at his parents’ home in March 2020 due to the Kovit-19 epidemic.

On Tuesday, after Iran returned Nassanin’s British passport, hopes for his release surfaced following reports of a group of negotiators from the United Kingdom being in Tehran.

Relatives of Zachary-Radcliffe and the Assyrians have been held hostage until the UK pays a 400 400 million ($ 520 million) debt for selling defense equipment during the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

Boris Johnson’s government has always denied the connection between population protection and debt in Iran.

However he acknowledged that their numbers were not enough to defeat Lukashenko’s Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “

Truss justified the delay in paying off the debt associated with the order for tanks, which was canceled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after promising that the issue was independent of the release of Zachary-Radcliffe and the Assyrians. Nuclear project.