Fury as Iranian TV says Boris gaffe is proof jailed mother was ‘plotting’
BORIS Johnson was under growing pressure last night over the fate of a British mother jailed in Iran as the state’s TV channel claimed his gaffe was an ‘admission’ she was ‘spying’.
Mr Johnson has faced calls to resign over his error, in which he said Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was ‘teaching people journalism’ in the country.
She has always maintained she was on holiday when she was arrested and accused of ‘espionage’.
But the row flared again yesterday when Iranian state TV reported – under a segment entitled ‘confession’ – that Mr Johnson’s comments revealed ‘the real plot’ behind Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s trip.
Last night, her husband Richard said the Foreign Secretary must come to the 38-year-old’s defence.
Mr Ratcliffe said Iranian state TV, whose programmes are sanctioned by senior officials, had clearly ‘latched on to’ Mr Johnson’s error to ‘discredit’ her.
The Channel 2 report said his suggestion that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was ‘training journalists’ when arrested had ‘dealt a blow’ to her claim of being on holiday. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been threatened with fresh charges of ‘propaganda against the regime’ that could see her five-year sentence doubled in the
‘Unintended admission’
wake of the Foreign Secretary’s remarks.
Mr Johnson admitted this week that his comments ‘could have been clearer’, and told MPs on Tuesday that the Government ‘has no doubt she was on holiday’.
He said he had received assurances from Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif that his remarks would not be used against her.
But Mr Ratcliffe said the broadcast showed Mr Johnson’s actions ‘ do not look sufficient’ and more must be done.
The family has been campaigning for her release since Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in Tehran last year as she tried to return to London with 18-month-old daughter Gabriella.
Mr Ratcliffe said: ‘The Government has been dragging its heels and my concern is what we do from here. It is spiralling out of control. The state TV has latched on to this error and are using the Foreign Secretary’s words to discredit Nazanin. ‘The stakes are very high for us. I think it is important that the Foreign Secretary now stands up for Nazanin and visits her on his upcoming trip to Iran. If that means going to knock on the prison door then so be it.’
Mr Ratcliffe said he had not heard from the Foreign Office about an offer to meet with Mr Johnson or received any personal apology. He hopes he will have a meeting on Mr Johnson’s return from the US when he intends to ask the Foreign Secretary to take him to Iran. ‘I haven’t been able to get an Iranian visa since, so I haven’t seen Nazanin or Gabriella so I would like to be on that plane with him,’ he said. Mr Ratcliffe urged Mr Johnson to ensure a Farsi translation of his ‘clarification’ was issued to Iranian media and the website of Britain’s embassy in Tehran.
He said his wife’s parents, who live in Iran and care for the couple’s daughter, now three, were left ‘horrified’ by the TV broadcast, adding that his wife would be ‘traumatised’ by it.
The broadcast said: ‘The unintended admission of Boris Johnson … was a gaffe that the British Government could not find a cover for … It appears the statement was an antidote to all the statements of various media and UK authorities who had been claiming in the past year-and-a-half that Nazanin had come to Iran for humanitarian reasons.’
Asked about the case, Mr Johnson said: ‘We have some difficult consular cases in Iran and we are working on all of them.’