British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is about to leave Iran where she has been detained since 2016, her MP has said.
Both Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow detainee Anousheh Ashoori are heading to Tehran airport to leave the country, said Tulip Siddiq. The Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn wrote on Twitter: "Nazanin is at the airport in Tehran and on her way home.”
The Foreign Office has not commented on the reports and earlier on Tuesday Boris Johnson said negotiations about Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe were 'moving forward' but 'going right up to the wire'. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained in Iran for nearly six years after being arrested while taking her daughter to see her family. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied.
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Yesterday it emerged she had been given her passport back in what supporters hoped would be a major breakthrough.
Speaking earlier, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s sister-in-law, Rebecca Ratcliffe, told BBC Breakfast: "We’ve had many ups over the last six years and been told she’s been about to be released. So there’s an element of false hopes and I think our family, Nazanin, her parents, find it hard to get too excited at the moment."
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 as she prepared to fly back to the UK, having taken her daughter Gabriella – then not even two years old – to see relatives. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one under house arrest.
Both the British Government and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe have always denied the allegations. While the details of the negotiations remain unclear, it is possible they are linked to a £400 million debt dating back to the 1970s owned to Iran by the UK.
The Government accepts it should pay the 'legitimate debt' for an order of 1,500 Chieftain tanks that was not fulfilled after the shah was deposed and replace by a revolutionary regime. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News on Wednesday that it is a 'priority to pay the debt that we owe to Iran'.
Tehran remains under strict sanctions, however, which have been linked to the failure to clear the debt.
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