Nazanin released from Iran after UK settled £400,000,000 debt to Iran

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first arrested in 2016 (Image: PA)

The UK paid Iran round £400 million earlier than two British-Iranian prisoners, together with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, have been launched.

Iranian media put the determine at $530 million – which equates to round £405 million.

UK Overseas Secretary Liz Truss additionally confirmed that a £400 million debt to the nation, which Iranian state TV branded ‘long-overdue’, had been settled.

Ms Truss mentioned the debt was paid in a approach which complies with UK and worldwide sanctions and with the funds being restricted to humanitarian functions solely.

Whereas the British and Iranian governments have claimed there isn't a connection between the debt and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case, Iranian state media reported in 2021 that unidentified Iranian officers mentioned she can be freed as soon as the debt was paid.

It comes after her lawyer Hojjat Kermani mentioned that the help employee and one other British-Iranian twin nationwide, Anousheh Ashouri, have been heading to Tehran airport to go away Iran.

Earlier than the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid £400 million for Chieftain tanks that have been by no means delivered.

Britain’s then Overseas Secretary and now Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Nazanin’s husband Richard Ratcliffe in 2017 (Image: Getty Photographs)

The UK Authorities has accepted it ought to pay the ‘respectable debt’ for the 1,500 automobiles, which didn't arrive after the shah was deposed and changed by a revolutionary regime.

Overseas Secretary Ms Truss advised Sky Information earlier on Wednesday that it was a ‘precedence to pay the debt that we owe to Iran’.

The Tehran regime stays below strict sanctions, which is assumed to have sophisticated efforts to repay the cash.

Rights teams accuse Iran of holding dual-nationals as bargaining chips for cash or affect in negotiations with the West, one thing Tehran denies.

Iran doesn’t acknowledge twin nationalities, so detainees like Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe can’t obtain consular help.

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A UN panel has criticised what it describes as ‘an rising sample involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of twin nationals’ in Iran.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016, spending 4 years in jail after which two extra below home arrest, separated from her husband and younger daughter, Gabriella.

On the infamous Evin jail within the Iranian capital, she frolicked in solitary confinement in windowless cells, declared starvation strikes and had medical remedy withheld.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a mum and venture supervisor for the Thomson Reuters Basis, was initially detained as she ready to fly again to the UK.

She had been taking her daughter Gabriella – then not even two years previous – to see family.

However as a substitute she was later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical institution – costs she has at all times denied.