Johnson apologises for distress caused to Briton held in Iran jail

ANDREW WOODCOCK

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is currently serving a five-year sentence in Iran, with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella.

to Iran planned by the end of the year, and to visit her in jail with the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Johnson told MPs the case had “cast a shadow” over Britain’s relationship with Tehran and said he would use his visit to drive home the strength of public and parliamentary feeling about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plight.

Mr Ratcliffe declined to join calls for Mr Johnson to resign over his gaffe, which was seized on by Iranian judicial authorities as an admission of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s guilt.

But he urged the Foreign Office to ensure that all ministers know that the Government’s position is that his wife was on holiday

at the time of her arrest, after Environment Secretary Michael Gove said in a television interview he did not know what she was doing in Iran.

Mr Ratcliffe said it would not be helpful for the Foreign Secretary to resign over his handling of the case.

“I don’t think it’s helpful for Nazanin at this point,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

“I don’t think it’s helpful also in terms of how that looks in Iran for me to be looking like I’m playing politics.

“It’s very important that the Iranians can see that this is just a family who are battling to bring Nazanin home, and not get the sort of sense that we are some sort of great

Machiavellian power. We are not.” Later, Mr Ratcliffe described diplomatic protection as the “crucial next step” in the campaign for his wife’s release.

“It is important,” he said. “There’s a way in which the Government will stand up and protect her much more stridently if she is given diplomatic protection.

“It is something that is within the gift of the Government to do.

“She is a British citizen, so she is eligible. And it is something for them to decide whether they want to or not.”

Mr Ratcliffe said it was important for the Government to make clear to Iran that holding British citizens, some of them for many years, was “not OK”.