Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British woman sent back to prison in Iran after temporary release not extended, husband says

Four-year-old daughter cried when she realised her mother was leaving

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has not been granted an extension to her temporary release from imprisonment in Iran, her husband has said.

Richard Ratcliffe said his wife’s lawyer was attempting to get her three-day release from Evin prison on furlough increased to a longer period on Sunday.

The British-Iranian mother was released from the Tehran jail on Thursday and has been staying with family outside the capital.

However, after a “day of mixed messages”, the request for an extension was not granted and she was told she must return to prison by sunset, Mr Ratcliffe said.

Their four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, cried when she realised her mother was leaving.

Mr Ratcliffe said: “Nazanin waited for Gabriella to wake up before saying goodbye, and left her family home to return to Evin prison.”

He added: “She promised Gabriella that the next time she saw her it would be forever not just for a few days, for proper freedom, not just for furlough.

“And next time they will go back to London to be with daddy.”

Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK’s director, called the events a “crushing disappointment”.

She said: “There were real hopes that not only would her three-day furlough be extended, but that her permanent and unconditional release was also just around the corner.

“We shouldn’t lose sight of what Nazanin has had to endure – nearly two-and-a-half years behind bars, eight gruelling months of solitary confinement without a lawyer, a deeply unfair trial, and also being subjected to a string of unfounded accusations from the Iranian authorities.

“Nazanin is a prisoner of conscience who should never have been jailed in the first place.

“Anything the UK government can now do to speed up the process of permanently freeing Nazanin should be done.

“The sooner that Nazanin is able to travel back to the UK with her young daughter, Gabriella, the better.”

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Hampstead, north London, was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehran’s Islamist regime.

She denies the allegation and said she was on holiday in Iran to allow her daughter to spend time with relatives there.

Gabriella has been staying with family in Iran since Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said on Thursday that the temporary release was “extremely positive” and called on Iranian authorities to allow her to return to her family in the UK.

Additional reporting by Press Association