CALLS FOR BORIS TO QUIT
BORIS Johnson was facing fresh calls to resign last night after he offered only a grudging apology for a ‘grave error’ that left a British mother facing another five years in an Iranian prison.
The Foreign Secretary faced fury in the Commons over remarks last week in which he said charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was ‘simply teaching people journalism’ during a 2016 trip to the country in April last year.
The 38-year-old from Hampstead in north London has been held in prison on spying charges since April last year, despite insisting her trip was just a holiday.
She is serving a five-year jail term following a secret trial in which she was convicted of plotting against the state. The Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights said Mr Johnson’s remarks ‘shed new light’ on her trip.
At the weekend she was hauled back to court to face new charges of ‘propaganda against the regime’ that could result in her sentence being doubled.
Her husband said she wept with despair after the latest development. Their three-year-old daughter Gabriella has been ‘praying to God’ for her mother’s release.
Mr Johnson yesterday acknowledged he ‘could have been clearer’ and was ‘sorry’ if his remarks had been ‘misconstrued’.
But he insisted his comments provided ‘no justifiable basis’ for further charges against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Yesterday he telephoned his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif to insist the Government backed Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s claim that she was on holiday at the time of her arrest and requested her release on compassionate grounds.
He said Mr Zarif had told him that there was ‘no link’ between his comments and the new charges against Mrs Zaghari- Ratcliffe which followed two days later.
The Foreign Secretary also revealed that he hoped to visit her in prison next month.
However, it emerged last night that he still has not spoken to her family despite repeated requests. And he faced a backlash from MPs after refusing to accept he had been wrong. Former Tory minister Anna Soubry said: ‘The lack of contrition is as shameful as the original error. ‘Boris Johnson doesn’t understand and responsibility the magnitude he holds.’ of the job Former Labour minister Yvette Cooper rounded on Mr Johnson, telling him: ‘The lives and safety of British citizens across the globe depend on having a Foreign Secretary who does not bluster and who is not too careless or too lazy to consider his words. Will he now apologise? Does he accept that he cannot be trusted to do this job and that he should resign?’ Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said it was clear Theresa May lacked the ‘strength and authority’ to sack Mr Johnson. But she added: ‘How about the Foreign Secretary himself shows a bit of personal responsibility and admits that a job like this, where your words hold gravity and your actions have consequences, it is simply not the job for him?’
Mr Johnson hit back, urging critics to train their fire on the Iranian regime. He said Miss Thornberry ‘can choose to heap blame on to the Foreign Office, which is trying to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but in so doing she deflects blame and accountability from those who are truly responsible... the Iranian regime’.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard said his wife had wept
‘Why does my baby have to suffer?’
down the phone after being told she would face fresh charges. ‘She was just saying, “Why do I have to suffer? Why does my baby have to suffer?” She was gutted and furious, and cried most of the call.’
Former Labour foreign secretary Jack Straw accused Mr Johnson of a ‘grave error’, which he should have been much quicker to correct.
Mr Ratcliffe dismissed Mr Johnson’s claim that his words had been misconstrued, saying: ‘We all interpreted it in the same way, including the Iranian authorities.’ But he welcomed the Foreign Secretary’s promise of renewed diplomatic efforts to free his wife.
Downing Street said last night Theresa May had ‘full confidence’ in Mr Johnson.