The husband of jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe today told Boris Johnson he ‘must be tougher’ to secure her release from an Iranian prison saying there was ‘no breakthrough’ during a meeting at No 10.
Richard Ratcliffe and their five-year-old daughter Gabriella met the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to discuss her imprisonment in Tehran, which continues after nearly four years.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five-year sentence over allegations, which she denies, of plotting to overthrow the Tehran government, having been arrested in 2016 during a holiday visit to show her then baby daughter to her parents.
Any optimism over Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s chances of freedom has been dampened in recent weeks by the soaring tensions with Iran provoked by the US killing of its top general, Qassem Soleimani.
Mr Ratcliffe last met Mr Johnson when he was foreign secretary in 2017, which came shortly after Mr Johnson had to apologise after wrongly suggesting that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists at the time of her arrest. She has always maintained she was in Iran visiting relatives.
After the meeting and while clutching his daughter’s hand, Mr Ratcliffe told reporters: ‘In truth, no breakthrough. Sympathy isn’t enough to get us out of this.
‘I think there remains that gap between my sense that the Government needs to be tougher with Iran, alongside improving relations generally, and the Foreign Office instinct to not have things escalate.’
Richard Ratcliffe (pictured with his daughter Gabriella and his mother Barbara) is meeting with the PM at Downing Street this afternoon
After the meeting and while clutching his daughter’s hand, Mr Ratcliffe told reporters: ‘In truth, no breakthrough. Sympathy isn’t enough to get us out of this’
He added: ‘I don’t think I have come away thinking Nazanin is coming out tomorrow or even next week and I will think carefully about what I tell her on the phone on Saturday about where the hope is to come.’
He said his wife was being used as a ‘chess piece’ adding: ‘That wasn’t disputed in there, whatever the terminology.
‘The UK obviously is wary of that tightrope it is walking between the US and Europe in Iran relations and the JCPOA (nuclear deal) and the dispute mechanism and so on.
‘I was saying ‘I think this is different’. This is a global norm, that actually we all uphold universal values where hostage-taking shouldn’t be happening.’
He also called for progress in the long-running legal dispute between the UK and Iran over a deal for Chieftain tanks struck in the 1970s, which has been seen as potentially hindering her release.
Mr Ratcliffe, pictured arriving in Downing Street today with his daughter Gabriella and his mother Barbara said he wants to hold the Prime Minister to his pledge that he would ‘leave no stone unturned’ to bring her home
Gabriella Zaghari-Ratcliffe holds a toy given to her by staff at 10 Downing Street, after attending a meeting with her father Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Mr Ratcliffe (pictured this afternoon) told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘He needs to take responsibility for Nazanin’s case, for upholding the promise he made to us to leave no stone unturned’
A two day hearing is currently taking place at the Court of Appeal to decide whether the UK has to pay interest on the debt, which could bring the row to an end.
The dispute concerns an Iranian payment in the 1970s for 1,500 Chieftain tanks and armoured vehicles. The contracts were cancelled after the shah was deposed in the 1979 revolution but Iran had already paid for the undelivered tanks and demanded its money back.
Mr Ratcliffe added: ‘We obviously talked about the fact that there is a court case happening somewhere else in London at the moment and we’ve been linked to it.
‘I think it’s important there is progress on that and there’s progress in the way that everyone feels it’s lawful and following proper process.
‘We’ll see where that goes. They said ‘listen, I promise you we are doing all we can to try and resolve other issues, it’s just complicated.’
Mr Ratcliffe added: ‘I don’t stand here hopeful, if I’m honest. I stand here with my wife still in prison and things aren’t moving.’
But he said he would ‘keep going and keep pushing’.
Ahead of the meeting the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Nazanin’s continued detention is inhumane and completely unacceptable.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 41-year-old mother from London, is serving a five-year sentence after being arrested during a holiday with her daughter and accused of spying
Mr Ratcliffe last met Mr Johnson when he was foreign secretary in 2017 (pictured, at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London)
‘We remain extremely concerned about her welfare. The UK continues to take every opportunity to raise Nazanin’s case at the most senior levels of the Iranian government.
‘The PM called for the immediate release of Nazanin and other dual nationals when he spoke to President Rouhani on January 9.’
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Ratcliffe called on the PM to take responsibility after the comments he made when he was foreign secretary were blamed for worsening his wife’s plight.
Mr Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘He needs to take responsibility for Nazanin’s case, for upholding the promise he made to us to leave no stone unturned.’
He urged Mr Johnson to be ‘brave’ in resolving a long-running trade dispute with Iran over the settlement of a £400 million debt.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe (pictured with her daughter) is among as many as five people with dual British-Iranian nationality, or with UK connections, believed to be in prison in Iran.
He added: ‘Nazanin was told way back in 2016 she was being held over it. It has long been in the shadows of our case.
‘His (Mr Johnson’s) obligation is to protect British citizens. He needs to be brave in doing positive gestures in relation to the debt and other issues that will calm relations down, but also being brave in calling out Iran on hostage-taking. It is not an acceptable way to conduct diplomacy.’
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 41-year-old mother from London, is serving a five-year sentence after being arrested during a holiday with her daughter and accused of spying.
Her family and the UK Government have always maintained her innocence and she has been given diplomatic protection by the Foreign Office.
Diplomatic protection is a little-used mechanism the Government can use to attempt to help individuals it believes have been wronged by another state.
It raises Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s treatment by Iran to become a formal state issue and recognises that the legal proceedings brought against her failed to meet international standards.
Mr Johnson has been persistently criticised for wrongly claiming, when he was foreign secretary, that she was training journalists at the time of her arrest.
Four days later she was summoned to an unscheduled court hearing during which Mr Johnson’s comments were cited as proof she was engaged in ‘propaganda against the regime’.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among as many as five people with dual British-Iranian nationality, or with UK connections, believed to be in prison in Iran.
There are some hopes that diplomatic tensions could ease between London and Tehran if a long-running £400 million dispute is settled in the Court of Appeal this week.
Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, tweeted that if a portion of the debt is assigned to Tehran then it will mean ‘the legal process of the case is coming to an end and there will be no excuse for default’ from the Government.
The sum has been outstanding since pre-revolutionary Iran paid the UK for 1,500 Chieftain tanks in the 1970s.
The deal was cancelled after the Shah of Iran was deposed in 1979, but Britain has refused to heed Iran’s demands to hand back the money.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local MP, Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, called on the Government to pay the sum back to Iran so that her constituent can be returned to the UK and reunited with her family.
Ms Siddiq said in the Commons: ‘This case relates to the £400 million that we owe Iran as a country, and anyone with a passing interest in my constituent’s case will know that the debt is linked to her imprisonment.
‘The Leader of the House (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said that the behaviour of the Iranian government is unforgivable, and I agree with him, but the behaviour of our Government is also unforgivable because we have not paid the money that we owe them.’
Mr Rees-Mogg said the issue is ‘extraordinarily difficult’.
He said: ‘The British Government cannot and must not pay or appear to pay, either in fact or reality, money to allow people who have been illegally detained to be released.
‘The risk that would cause to other Britons travelling abroad would be very considerable.
‘The law must take its course in relation to the money which was deposited here, but it would be absolutely wrong to connect the two issues.’