Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and another British-Iranian national imprisoned in Iran arrived home last night after ministers settled a historic ￡400m debt owed to the regime in Tehran.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow detainee Anousheh Ashoori were flown to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
The mother was reunited with seven-year-old daughter Gabriella and husband Richard, who has conducted a long and very public campaign for her freedom.
He told The Independent last night that he was looking forward to an emotional reunion after her six-year ordeal.
“We will have a couple of days here of just catching up with each other,” he said. “It will probably involve having a cup of tea together, hanging out, learning to be normal and playing games.”
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Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained on security charges by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after a holiday visit to Iran, where she introduced her daughter Gabriella to her parents.
A third detainee, London-born wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz, has been temporarily released from prison “on furlough” but his ultimate fate is complicated by the fact he has US nationality as well as British and Iranian. And British-Iranian Mehran Raoof remains in custody as his release does not appear to have formed part of the deal.
In a coordinated move, the UK has made a payment of ￡393.8m in settlement of a 40-year-old debt for Chieftain tanks bought by the former shah of Iran but never delivered after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that removed him from power.
Prime minister Boris Johnson – who was accused of worsening Nazanin’s plight as foreign secretary when he wrongly told MPs she had been working as a journalist in Iran – welcomed the development.
He said: “The UK has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones.”
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Show all 20
1/20Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures 2018 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugs her daughter Gabriella, in Iran after she was allowed to leave the Iranian prison, she is being held in, for three days. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Iranian authorities accuse her of plotting against the government. Her family denies this, saying says she was in Iran to visit family.
Free Nazanin Campaign/AP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella. Nazanin is serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly plotting to overthrow Iran's government.
PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures June 2016 Richard Ratcliffe's daughter Gabriella had her British passport confiscated and was stranded in Iran with her grandparents after her mother Nazanin was jailed. He left left a giant birthday card on the doorstep of the Iranian embassy in central London to mark her second birthday in June 2016.
PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin has spent some of her prison sentence in solitary confinement.
PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella.
Family Handout
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures July 2016 Richard Ratcliffe delivering a letter of petition with his mother Barbara Ratcliffe and MP Tulip Siddiq, to 10, Downing Street on the 100th day of her detention, on July 12, 2016.
Getty
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Supporters of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe held a vigil outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to mark her 707 days in captivity.
Getty
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures January 2017 Richard Ratcliffe holds a '#Free Nazanin' sign and candle during a vigil for for wife on January 16, 2017. The vigil, being held outside the Iranian Embassy in London marks one year since the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and other US-Iranian dual-nationals were released from prison in Iran.
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin with her daughter Gabriella before they were detained by Iranian authorities.
Change.org
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures September 2017 Gabriella, who is three-years-old in this picture, has now spent two years away from her mother.
Richard Ratcliffe
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson meets with Richard Ratcliffe over Nazanin's case. They meet just days after Johnson told a parliamentary committee that she was in Iran "training journalists".
WPA Pool/Getty
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Actor Emma Thompson braved pneumonia to support Richard Ratcliffe in leading demonstrators before a march in support of Nazanin in November.
Reuters
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 Richard Ratcliffe after the march said: 'It is profoundly moving to see so many people here.'
REUTERS
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures November 2017 A picture of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe shown on Iranian state TV as part of a report that made fresh allegations against her. They said she had been recruiting for banned broadcast services, as well as 'opposition cyber teams'.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures December 2017 Iranian president Hassan Rouhani greets British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson at the presidential office in Tehran, Iran. Johnson visited Tehran to discuss the fate of detained Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
EPA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella.
PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures December 2017 Photos of Richard Ratcliffe and his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on display at their home in north London. Mr Ratcliffe said he believed there was "still a chance" she may be released from an Iranian prison in time for a dream Christmas together. Unfortunately that didn't happen.
PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures February 2018 Richard Ratcliffe delivers a petition and a letter addressed to the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to demand her release, at the Iranian Embassy in London on February 21, 2018. He also left support letters for his spouse in the country's embassy, amid a visit by a deputy foreign minister.
AFP/Getty
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures August 2018 Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt meeting Richard Ratcliffe. Hunt has pledged to do everything possible to secure the release of a charity worker jailed in Iran
Jeremy Hunt/PA
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – in pictures August 2018 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugs her daughter Gabriella, in Iran after she was allowed to leave the Iranian prison, she is being held in, for three days. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. Iranian authorities accuse her of plotting against the government. Her family denies this, saying says she was in Iran to visit family.
PA
The Ratcliffes’ lawyer, Penny Madden, said the family had been through “a roller-coaster of emotions” over recent days as her release appeared to be drawing near, and were now feeling “enormous relief”. Gabriella was “beyond excited at the prospect of being reunited with her mummy”, said Ms Madden.
But she said it was a “big wrench” for Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe to leave her parents behind in Iran, knowing that it will be all but impossible for her to return to the country.
Speaking to reporters alongside Gabriella near their north London home, Mr Ratcliffe said it was a “huge, huge relief” that his wife was finally returning.
“You can’t back the time that’s gone, but we live in the future not the past,” he said. “We’ll take it one day at a time.
“It’s going to be the beginning of a new life, a normal life. Can we still quite believe it? I think when we see mummy, we’ll believe it.”
Iran sentenced Nazanin – a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency – to five years in prison in September 2016 after accusing her of “plotting to topple the Iranian regime”, a charge she has always denied.
Britain has always insisted that the dispute over the unpaid could not be linked to the unfair detentions.
But it is clear that the settlement of the long-standing debt was central to securing agreement from Iran’s clerical government to the releases.
UK officials are refusing to discuss the details of the payment, which were agreed on condition of confidentiality. But it is understood that it has not been made in cash and may be in the form of credit for purchases of humanitarian supplies such as vaccines.
In a statement, Ms Truss said the release was “the result of tenacious and creative British diplomacy”.
She said: “We have the deepest admiration for the resolve, courage and determination Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad, and their families, have shown. They have faced hardship that no family should ever experience and this is a moment of great relief.”
Ms Truss said that the historic debt had been settled “in parallel” with the negotiations over the detainees and “in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations”.
She added: “These funds will be ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods.”
Concluding the deal has required lengthy negotiations to find a way for the payment to be made without Britain breaching UK or international sanctions and remaining within its international obligations.
Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said that it had been decided during his term of office in 2018 that the UK would repay the money, put “practical difficulties” relating to Iran’s sanctions had prevented progress.
Since the detentions began, a series of prime ministers and Foreign Office ministers have spoken directly to their Iranian counterparts on 35 occasions to press for their release and spoken 75 times to detainees’ families.
Ms Truss said that she made it her “top priority” on arrival at the Foreign Office last September to resolve the two issues, and the intensity of talks has stepped up in recent months.
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Her meeting with Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in New York in September was the first face-to-face contact at this level for three years, and delivered an agreement to work towards finding a solution to the disputes “in parallel”.
Ms Truss sent a team of experienced negotiators to Tehran in October and spoke again with the Iranian foreign minister that month.