British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told her daughter would be taken away and her husband was a spy after first being detained in Iran
- 41-year-old said she spent 40 days in complete isolation after being imprisoned
- It caused her to ‘doubt herself’ and ask if spy accusations were actually correct
- British-Iranian national revealed her ordeal in White Torture, a book of interviews
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told her daughter would be taken away and that her husband was a spy after she was first detained in Iran, a new account has revealed.
The 41-year-old said she spent 40 days in complete isolation after being imprisoned, which caused her to ‘doubt herself’ and question whether accusations that she was a spy were actually correct.
The British-Iranian national, who will return to court in Tehran to face new charges on Monday, revealed her ordeal in White Torture, a book of interviews with Iranian political prisoners.
The 41-year-old (pictured) said she spent 40 days in complete isolation after being imprisoned, which caused her to ‘doubt herself’ and question whether accusations that she was a spy were actually correct
The British-Iranian national (pictured with her daughter Gabriella in 2018), who will return to court in Tehran to face new charges on Monday, revealed her ordeal in White Torture, a book of interviews with Iranian political prisoners
Her account said interrogators ‘tried to induce me to say something that didn’t exist’.
She added: ‘They said they had top-secret evidence that I worked for the [British] parliament and against Iran.
‘I was sure that was not the case, but they repeated it so much that I doubted myself when I returned to the cell.
‘I spent long hours in my cell wondering if the projects I had worked on had anything to do with Iran.’
Pictured is Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe sits during his hunger strike outside the Iranian embassy in London on June 17, 2019
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in the country since 2016 when she was arrested at Tehran airport following a visit to her parents to introduce them to their granddaughter.
She was convicted of spying and jailed for five years, although she was freed under house arrest in March as coronavirus swept through Iran’s prisons.
During the initial interrogations, officials threatened to send her daughter Gabriella to London if she ‘did not cooperate’ and insisted her husband was a spy, The Guardian reported.
Before she was placed under house arrest, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned at Iran’s notorious Evin prison (pictured)
She said: ‘Interrogations always caused me psychological distress… I was so anxious.’
Gabriella, now six, stayed with her grandparents in Iran after her mother’s arrest.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned Iran not to imprison Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe again, saying it would jeopardise relations with the UK.