LONDON: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Tehran since 2016, has had her British passport returned, her local MP in London said on Tuesday, raising hopes for her release.
“I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back,” Labour MP Tulip Siddiq wrote on her Twitter account.
“I also understand that there is a British negotiating team in Tehran right now,” she added.
Siddiq’s comment follows reports that London and Tehran may be close to resolving a long-standing dispute over a debt dating back to the time of the Shah of Iran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, believes his wife is being held as a political pawn until the debt of GBP400 million ($520 million, 475 million euros) for defense equipment is resolved.
Resolving the dispute could clear the way for the release of other UK nationals held in Iran.
On the debt, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office told AFP, “We continue to explore options to resolve this case and will not comment further as discussions are ongoing.”
Asked about reports on the possible release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a spokesman added, “We have long called for the release of unfairly detained British nationals in Iran.
“We don’t comment on speculation.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyer Hojjat Kermani was optimistic about her situation, according to her employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthrophic arm of the news and data agency.
“I am hopeful that we will have good news soon,” Kermani was quoted as saying.
The UK chief executive of human rights group Amnesty International, Sacha Deshmukh, said, “We sincerely hope these reports are correct.
“The detainees and their families have been suffering for years and a resolution can’t come quickly enough.
“It’s been clear for a long time that the Iranian authorities have been targeting foreign nationals with spurious national security-related charges to exert diplomatic pressure.
“In the past we’ve had false dawn after false dawn over possible breakthroughs, so it’s only right to be cautious at the moment.”
Other UK-Iranian nationals held in Tehran include retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, who was arrested in August 2017 and jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel.
Mehran Raoof, a labor rights activist, was detained in October 2020 and was being held in solitary confinement, according to Amnesty.
Dual nationals from the Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States have also been arrested in similar circumstances.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a visit to her family in the Iranian capital in 2016 and convicted of plotting to overthrow the government. She was jailed for five years.
She was sentenced to a further year’s imprisonment in April last year for participating in a rally outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009.
Richard Ratcliffe staged a hunger strike outside the foreign ministry in London last October after she lost her latest appeal, and as government ministers held talks with Iranian counterparts.
She was freed from prison with an electronic tag in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic but she has been held in Iran under a form of house arrests ever since.