Susanna Reid was left emotional as ITV’s Good Morning Britain played a clip of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being reunited with her husband and daughter after being freed from years of Iranian detention.
The British-Iranian national returned to the UK overnight, touching down at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Arriving alongside Anoosheh Ashoori, the freed detainees met their families in the airport for the long-awaited reunions and the ITV studio played a clip of Nazanin hugging her seven-year-old daughter Gabriella.
The charity worker embraced her husband Richard Ratcliffe, whose relentless campaigning since 2016 helped secure his wife's freedom.
Hosts Susanna Reid and Ben Shephard reflected on the poignant moment in the ITV studio, noting that the moment marked the end of a six-year ordeal.
Susanna’s voice turned hoarse with emotion as she said: “Richard Ratcliffe made the decision to openly campaign, to go on hunger strike.
“He had been warned it could risk Nazanin’s life and the risk that he took in order to speak out was hugely courageous and as a result brought everyone with him. As the huge response from viewers comes in, everyone’s invested.”
She continued: “We’ve also seen the risks of misspeaking about it - Boris Johnson as foreign secretary - one wrong word.
“Richard must have been walking on eggshells the entire time, worried about saying the right thing. He has done absolutely the right thing at every stage. Absolutely brilliant work.”
The family's lawyer Hojjat Kermani said she had been freed alongside Anoosheh Ashoori, following talks between London and Tehran over a £400million debt between the UK and Iranian governments.
A live-stream of their reunion showed daughter Gabriella shouted 'Mummy' before running to meet Nazanin, who burst into tears as she entered the building before Richard joined them for a poignant reunion which lasted for more than an hour at the base.
In a message shared online, the Zaghari-Ratcliffe family said: “No place like home. Thank you to everyone who made this possible, to all of the care and campaigning, and diplomatic efforts. You have made us whole.”
Nazanin was taking the couple's daughter Gabriella to see her family when she was arrested and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Evin Prison and one under house arrest.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, said: "This is fantastic news, but it hasn't come a moment too soon.
"Nazanin and Anoosheh should never have been detained in the first place - they were both jailed on trumped-up national security charges, a familiar tactic in Iran.
"Nazanin and Anoosheh have unquestionably been used as political pawns by the Iranian authorities - and the Iranian authorities have acted with calculated cruelty, seeking to wring the maximum diplomatic value out of their captivity.
"The Government needs to follow up on Nazanin and Anoosheh's release by immediately renewing its calls for the release of the UK nationals Mehran Raoof and Morad Tahbaz, both of whom are still going through an ordeal all too similar to Nazanin and Anoosheh's.
"It's been clear for years that the Iranian authorities are targeting foreign nationals with spurious national security-related charges to exert diplomatic pressure, and it's more important than ever that Britain works multilaterally to combat this insidious practice."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
