Iran releases British aid worker but blocks her return to UK

British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will not be reunited with her family in the UK despite her five-year jail term in Iran ending yesterday.

Her electronic tag was removed but she was told she must return to court next Sunday, ending slim hopes that she would leave the country. Her passport has not been returned.

Her MP in London, Tulip Siddiq, said her worst fear was that Ms ZaghariRatcliffe would be given another five-year sentence.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain told Tehran that she should be released immediately.

“We welcome the removal of Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe’s ankle tag, but Iran continues to put her and her family through a cruel and an intolerable ordeal,” he said.

“We have relayed to the Iranian authorities in the strongest terms that her continued confinement is unacceptable.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, left Evin jail last year as part of a programme to temporarily release thousands of prisoners because of the threat posed by the spread of Covid-19. She was confined to her parents’ home in Tehran.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said she remained an unwilling participant in a game of high-stakes international diplomacy.

“It feels to me like they have made one blockage just as they have removed another and we very clearly remain in the middle of this government game of chess,” he said.

Her family fears that she could face further trumpedup charges to keep her in Iran because of a diplomatic dispute between London and Tehran.

They believe her fate is tied to a debt over an armaments deal that was cancelled after the 1979 revolution in Iran.

Redress, a legal group that represents the family, accused Tehran of breaching the UN convention against torture over its “ongoing cruelty”.