Johnson sorry for Iran jail gaffe
FOREIGN Secretary Boris Johnson apologised yesterday for any distress over comments he made which it is feared could double the five-year sentence of a British woman jailed in Iran.
Mr Johnson returned from Brussels to answer an urgent question in parliament about his suggestion to MPs last week Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran.
He said: “I do apologise, and of course I retract any suggestion that she was there [Iran] in a professional capacity.”
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was on holiday visiting family with her daughter Gabriella, then 22-months-old, when she was held in April 2016.
It was later revealed she was jailed “for allegedly plotting to topple the Iranian regime”.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the Iranian courts could use the remarks to lengthen Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sentence.
Mrs Thornberry told of a week of “obfuscation and bluster” from Mr Johnson as she urged him to state “simply and unequivocally” he got it wrong.
Mr Johnson said: “Of course, I apologise for the distress, the suffering that has been caused by the impression that I gave that the Government believed – that I believed – she was there in a professional capacity. She was there on holiday and that is the view.”
He is to discuss giving Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, diplomatic protection, which would lift her plight from a consular case to a formal dispute between the two countries, in a meeting with her husband Richard this week.
Mr Ratcliffe has asked Mr Johnson to take him on his forthcoming trip to Tehran amid fears over his wife’s health. She is said to be at risk of a nervous breakdown amid cancer fears after finding lumps in her breast.
Mr Johnson said: “He [Mr Ratcliffe] has requested to come to Tehran. I don’t know if that will be possible but we will see what we can do.”
Mr Ratcliffe yesterday spoke of his family’s anger at Environment Secretary Michael Gove when he told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that he “did not know” why his wife was in Iran, rather than repeating the Government’s view that she was on holiday.