Pay debt and end Nazanin’s hell
RWE COUD have Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe out of her five-year incarceration in Iran and back in herWest Hampstead home by teatime tomorrow if the British Government stirred its stumps, showed some gumption and wrote a cheque.
And no, that would not mean Britain paying a ransom for her release. Our foreign policy is rightly immovable on that principle.We do not reward hostage-takers, be they terrorist groups or corrupt nationstates such as Iran and its apology for a justice system.We all know what that would lead to – more of the same.
Let’s just take stock of where Britain and Iran stand this morning.
Nazanin was arrested at Tehran Airport on trumped-up charges of spying on April 3, 2016. Frankly, it’s a wonder that something similar hadn’t happened earlier.
Because we owe Iran money. Lots of money. Roughly £400million. Why? Because the Shah of Iran paid cash up front for a delivery of British-built Chieftain tanks, just before he was overthrown in 1979. We subsequently refused to ship those tanks to the new regime – reasonably enough – but we also held on to the dosh. Not reasonable.
For years Britain stonewalled Iran’s increasingly furious demands for the money’s return, and in 2008 the dispute went to independent international arbitration.
We lost. Unequivocally. Judges ruled that the UK was in the wrong and the money had to be returned at once. But instead of accepting this verdict with good grace, Britain quibbled, sidestepped, ducked and weaved like a dodgy car salesman.
So eight years later, Nazanin (who has dual UK/Iranian citizenship) was duly detained by Iran’s security goons, fitted up, jailed, tortured, half-starved and brainwashed for the next five years. She completed her sentence last month but she’s still held pending another spell in prison on yet more false charges.
Iran has dropped all pretence that the young mother’s treatment has anything other to do than with the money we owe them.
Nazanin’s husband, Richard, says they’ve made the link explicitly clear to her.Yet still we prevaricate, and still this innocent woman languishes in purgatory.
Would settling the debt be paying a ransom by another name? NO.We owe this money.That Nazanin is being ruthlessly used as a helpless bargaining chip to get it doesn’t alter that fact.We live in the real, ugly world. Find yourself in debt to a bunch of thugs? In a world where if you owe money to a bunch of gangsters, it’s hardly a surprise that they play rough when you refuse to pay up.
Yet still we prevaricate as poor Nazanin suffers.The UK’s latest excuse? Iran is subject to comprehensive sanctions, which makes repaying the money “complicated”.
More drivel to justify more delay and it’s time Boris Johnson cut this Gordian Knot. He should lock his Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence pooh-bahs in aWhitehall basement until they work out the formula for wiring the dosh to Tehran. My suggestion? Half up front, half when she is on board a plane and out of Iranian airspace.
Enough is enough. As Churchill would say: “Action this day!”