British pair detained in Iran for almost six years finally released

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran for nearly six years, is on her way to Tehran's airport to leave the country. Photo / Zaghari-Ratcliffe Family via AP

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national who has been detained in Iran for nearly six years, has left Tehran's airport after being freed with another fellow detainee, Anoosheh Ashoori, British officials said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on a trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, tweeted that he was pleased that the two's "unfair detention" had ended.

I am very pleased to confirm that the unfair detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori in Iran has ended today, and they will now return to the UK.

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 16, 2022

"The UK has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones," he wrote. He said the two would return to the UK.

An Oman Royal Air Force jet left Iran just moments before lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, who represents Zaghari Ratcliffe, tweeted that they were in the air.

An image showed Zaghari-Ratcliffe inside a similar aircraft. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency also posted a video online of a woman it said was Zaghari-Ratcliffe getting on to a similar aircraft.

Nazanin’s plane took off from Oman just over half an hour ago and she’s due to arrive in the UK this evening.

Here she is on the plane - the final step in what has been a six year long ordeal.#NazaninIsFree pic.twitter.com/YN2AHA6jVR

— Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) March 16, 2022

Ashoori was detained in Tehran in August 2017. He had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for alleged ties to the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, something long denied by his supporters and family.

A lawyer representing Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Tehran couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

Johnson had confirmed earlier that a negotiating team was at work in Tehran to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe served five years in prison. She was later convicted of plotting the overthrow of Iran's government, a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups deny. She had been held under house arrest and unable to leave the country since her release from prison.

While employed at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news agency, she was taken into custody at Tehran's airport in April 2016 as she was returning home to Britain after visiting family.

Rights groups accuse Iran of holding dual-nationals as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West, something Tehran denies. Iran doesn't recognise dual nationalities, so detainees like Zaghari-Ratcliffe can't receive consular assistance. A UN panel has criticised what it describes as "an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals" in Iran.

Iranian state media said that Britain had "settled a long-overdue debt of $530 million to Tehran". Iran's English-language broadcaster Press TV made the announcement as Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed to travel to the airport with British officials.

Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency earlier suggested she'd be released after the British government paid Iran the sum. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the late Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid the sum of £400m for Chieftain tanks that were never delivered. - AP