Zaghari-Ratcliffe returns after 5-year arrest in Iran

LONDON AFP March17, 2022 -   
The families of two British-Iranians who returned to the UK after years imprisoned in Tehran on Thursday spoke of their overwhelming relief and gratitude at finally being reunited.   

Charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and 67-year-old retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori landed at a Royal Air Force base in southern England in the early hours.   

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s jubilant seven-year-old daughter Gabriella shouted “Mummy!”, before she and her father Richard Ratcliffe were together again. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the regime and jailed for five years. An additional 12-month sentence followed last year for protesting outside the London embassy of the Islamic republic in 2009.   

Ashoori’s family was also at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to welcome him home five years after his arrest in Iran.   

Ashoori, from southeast London, was arrested in 2017 and jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel.