Jailed aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband appeals to Iranian minister on UK visit

LONDON: Richard Ratcliff has made a further appeal for the release of his wife, British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been imprisoned in Iran since April 2016.
Ratcliff delivered letters of support for his wife, a charity worker serving a five-year prison sentence in Iran, to the Iranian embassy on Wednesday morning. He is hoping they will be seen by Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who is visiting the UK this week.
“We’re delivering the letters today because of the opportunity of the deputy foreign minister being here,” Ratcliff told the Press Association outside the Iranian embassy in west London.
“He’s here to improve relations between Iran and the UK and we want Nazanin to be right at the front of that.”
He was joined by supporters from Amnesty International, who said they would not rest until her release.
Zaghari-Ratciffe, a project manager for Thomson Reuters Foundation says she was in Iran to visit relatives with her daughter Gabriella, who was 18 months old at the time of her mother’s arrest.
She stands accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian regime, but many believe her incarceration is a political ploy.
UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson inflamed the situation last year when he told a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in Iran to train journalists. He later apologized for comments that risked worsening her plight.
Iranian officials recently proposed moving Zaghari-Ratciffe and her daughter, who is currently residing with her grandparents in Iran, to a rented house under armed gaurd. Her husband has refused the offer.
“The family’s view was that this would simply be a different kind of imprisonment, and not an option for Nazanin and Gabriella.”
“We are not about to put Gabriella under armed guard,” he said in a statement.

Jailed aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband appeals to Iranian minister on UK visit