Hi Daddy, I’m home
Bittersweet return to Britain for daughter of jailed Nazanin
She has spent most of her life in Tehran, making weekly visits to her mother in an Iranian jail.
Now, after more than three years living in the Middle east, the daughter of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has returned home to start school in the UK.
It was a bittersweet homecoming for five-year-old Gabriella, who smiled and wrapped her arms around her father Richard Ratcliffe as they were reunited at heathrow on Thursday night.
Gabriella, who speaks very little english, lived with her grandparents in Tehran where her mother, a BritishIranian charity worker, has been held since 2016 over false accusations she was working as a spy.
Yesterday Mr Ratcliffe told how ‘lovely’ it was to have Gabriella back – but fears her return also means his wife has lost an ‘important lifeline’.
Speaking at a press conference in London – with Gabriella sat on his lap enjoying a ‘welcome home’ cake – Mr Ratcliffe said: ‘I spoke to Nazanin yesterday and of course she’s really upset. It’s one of the things she really didn’t want to happen – for her daughter to leave and for her to still be stuck in prison.’
he added Gabriella had ‘promised Mummy she’s going to be brave’ – and that her first words to him at the airport were ‘hello, how are you?’.
The couple had agreed their daughter should return to the UK for the start of the school year in September, but postponed the decision after Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 41, was taken to a psychiatric hospital last month.
he said his daughter’s last visit to evin prison on Wednesday was longer than normal and his wife, who is serving a five-year sentence, had ‘put on a very brave face’.
‘It will be an important lifeline that has been taken away,’ he said. ‘If I’m honest, I was really worried about us taking this step precisely because the thing that Nazanin looks forward to, week to week, is seeing Gabriella.’
Asked if he feared his wife’s mental and physical condition will deteriorate without those visits, Mr Ratcliffe, from West hampstead, London, said: ‘I think it’ll deteriorate anyway.’
Yesterday Mr Ratcliffe also said his wife received a warning from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – ahead of Gabriella’s return – that she was going to face another court hearing. ‘They didn’t spell out why, but I’m sure it’s connected to this week’s events,’ he said.
Mr Ratcliffe called on Boris Johnson to secure the release of his wife.
he said: ‘It’s not our problem to solve, it’s their problem to solve and their failure to solve it has had a huge human cost on our family. We looked at him [Mr Johnson, when he was foreign secretary] once before to be our hero and now he’s got the chance.’
It is feared Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being used as a bargaining chip in a decades-old row over a £400million arms debt owed by the UK to Tehran.
Yesterday Labour MP Tulip Siddiq said she does not advocate the UK paying to release hostages, but said that debt needs to be paid and the money would not be an exchange for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release.
She urged the Government to do ‘everything it possibly can’ to bring Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe home.