MPs are to examine why ministers delayed paying a debt to Iran even though they knew the payment was likely to lead to the release of two British-Iranian detainees.
The foreign affairs select committee formally confirmed it was launching an inquiry adding that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori deserved the truth. Both were released a fortnight ago and returned to the UK from Iran after payment of the £400m debt on the understanding the money was used for humanitarian purposes.
The committee chair, Tom Tugendhat, said: “After years of imprisonment in extremely difficult circumstances Nazanin and Anoosheh are right to ask for answers.” The pair had been held for almost six years and more than four years respectively in Iran.
The Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, has already written to the committee saying he had contacts with Iranian ministers who repeatedly told him that the UK refusal to pay the debt was making the dual nationals’ release more difficult to secure. He said he argued inside the government that the £400m sum was not a ransom, but an internationally acknowledged debt.
The debt arose out of an upfront payment in 1971 to the UK by the Iranian government under the Shah of Iran for more than 1,700 Chieftain tanks.
Only 175 of the tanks were delivered by the UK despite receiving the Iranian money due to the takeover of Iran by a revolutionary regime in 1979.
Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP representing Zaghari-Ratcliffe, had called for the select committee inquiry into the Foreign Office handling of the issue. She said: “I know that the Foreign Office cannot reasonably be held responsible for the arbitrary detention of its nationals abroad, but it also cannot escape scrutiny and challenge for its clear shortcomings in trying to secure their release – particularly from Iran. Other countries including Australia, France, Germany, Canada and the US have had greater success in securing the fair treatment and release of prisoners held for leverage on false charges.
“The husband of Nazanin, Richard, and I have known since the start that Nazanin’s imprisonment was linked to the historic debt we owed to Iran, yet it was only after many years of pressure that this was finally resolved. While in Iran, Nazanin was blindfolded, handcuffed, interrogated and subjected to solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and torture. The government has serious questions to answer about why this was allowed to happen to an innocent British citizen, who was caught as a pawn in a political dispute between two countries.
“The inquiry should look at why the deal that the UK and Iran supposedly made in 2021 to resolve the debt and bring Nazanin home collapsed.”
