Husband of charity worker jailed in Iran praises Hunt

JEREMY HUNT has given greater priority to the case of jailed charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe than Boris Johnson did during his time as foreign secretary, her husband has said.

Richard Ratcliffe said he had detected a difference in the UK Government’s approach to his wife’s imprisonment in Iran since Mr Hunt took over at the Foreign Office in July.

“I certainly sensed a change in the way [Mr Hunt] prioritised Nazanin’s case,” Mr Ratcliffe said. “One of my complaints with the Government was that it didn’t feel like it was treating her case with the public severity I thought it deserved. He’s been great in that sense, he’s been clear and critical.”

Mr Ratcliffe appeared on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 after his wife was briefly released from Tehran’s Evin prison and allowed to spend the weekend with her family and fouryear-old daughter Gabriella.

The family had hoped she might be freed for several weeks, or even permanently, but she was summoned back to prison on Sunday night.

Mr Ratcliffe said she returned voluntarily rather than face the prospect of Iranian authorities storming her family’s home to take her back. “She felt it would be better not to expose Gabriella to more trauma and to voluntarily submit herself,” he said.

Mrs Zaghari-ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spying. Her husband has been unable to get a visa to Iran to visit her. He said that a Skype conversation over the weekend was the first time he had seen her face in two years.

Mr Ratcliffe said Iranian authorities had threatened his wife’s family during her brief release and warned them not to go near the British embassy in Tehran. Iran fears she might try to seek sanctuary inside the embassy, setting up a potential diplomatic standoff.

Mr Hunt said he spoke to Iran’s foreign minister about the case on Friday “but that clearly wasn’t enough”.