British-Iranian accused by Iran of spying for Israel is released after 5 years

Anoosheh Ashoori, a British-Iranian who was held by Iran, accused of spying for Israel, was set free and flew out of the country Wednesday after five years in prison.

Ashoori, 67, boarded a flight to Muscat along with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a UK charity worker who was detained in Iran for nearly six years on charges of subversion.

Their release came as the UK government settled a decades-old debt to Iran.

“I am very pleased to confirm that the unfair detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori in Iran has ended today, and they will now return to the UK,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter.

A retired civil engineer, Ashoori, was held at the Evin prison.

His daughter, Elika Ashoori posted a video message to Twitter in which she said she was “delighted” to announce that her father would be returning home.

“1,672 days ago our family’s foundations were rocked when our father and husband was unjustly detained and taken away from us,” she said. “Now, we can look forward to rebuilding those same foundations with our cornerstone back in place.”

Ashoori, who had lived for 20 years in the UK, was arrested in 2017 as he visited his elderly mother in Tehran. He had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for alleged ties to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, something long denied by his supporters and family.

Amnesty International has said that while in detention Ashoori was “subjected to torture, repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer present and forced to sign ‘confessions’ while sleep deprived.”

The British government said a third detainee, Morad Tahbaz, who holds US, British, and Iranian citizenship, was released from prison on furlough as part of the same deal.

“We have the deepest admiration for the resolve, courage, and determination Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad, and their families, have shown,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement “They have faced hardship that no family should ever experience and this is a moment of great relief.”

Labour’s Janet Daby, who is the member of parliament for Lewisham East where Anoosheh lives, told lawmakers that “as Anoosheh’s member of Parliament I am, of course, thrilled beyond belief for his release and for Nazanin.”

She called it a “day of celebration” for his family, the BBC reported.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency published a video of a woman dressed in black Islamic clothing, assumed to be Zaghari-Ratcliffe, boarding a private jet.

Omani state television later said that Ashoori and Zaghari-Ratcliffe had both arrived in the capital Muscat and the country’s foreign minister Badr Albusaidi posted a photo of them stepping onto the tarmac.

Nazanin and Anoosheh have arrived safely in Oman. Sincere thanks for the hard work and good faith in Tehran and London that made this possible. Soon they will be with their loved ones at home. We hope this result will bring further progress in the dialogue between the parties. pic.twitter.com/u5qDQ4sgHC

— Badr Albusaidi – بدر البوسعيدي (@badralbusaidi) March 16, 2022

Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent, was caught in a dragnet targeting environmental activists while visiting Iran in January 2018. The 66-year-old served on the board of the Persian Heritage Wildlife Association, a prominent conservation group in Iran.

Iran convicted Tahbaz, along with seven other environmentalists including his colleagues, on charges of spying for the US. He was sentenced to 10 years and taken to Evin Prison.

In France, the family of a French tourist jailed in Iran since May 2020 welcomed the release and urged French authorities to accomplish “without delay” what British authorities had achieved.

Johnson had previously confirmed that a negotiating team was at work in Tehran to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the news and data agency, was arrested during a visit to her family in the Iranian capital in 2016 and convicted of plotting to overthrow the government. She was jailed for five years.

She was sentenced to a further year’s imprisonment in April last year for participating in a rally outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, staged a hunger strike outside the foreign ministry in London last October after she lost her latest appeal, and as government ministers held talks with Iranian counterparts.

She was freed from prison with an electronic tag in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but has been held in Iran under a form of house arrest ever since.

Wednesday’s announcement came after extensive diplomacy that secured the release of the dual nationals and led to an agreement to repay the debt in a way that complies with UK and international sanctions.

Britain agreed to pay Iran 393.8 million pounds ($515.5 million), which will be ring-fenced so the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes. The British government declined to offer details of the arrangement.

While the British government has refused to acknowledge a link between the debt and the detention of the dual nationals, Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has been outspoken in arguing that Iran was holding her hostage to force Britain to pay.

The debt has been a sticking point in British-Iranian relations for more than 40 years.

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the UK canceled an agreement with the late Shah of Iran to sell the country more than 1,500 Chieftain tanks. Since the shah’s government had paid in advance, the new Iranian government demanded repayment for the tanks that were never delivered. The two countries have haggled over the debt ever since.

The release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori comes as the US, Britain, and other countries seek to secure the release of dozens of dual nationals detained by Iran, which doesn’t recognize their right to hold citizenship in another country.

Family members and human rights activists accuse Iran of arresting the dual nationals on trumped-up charges to use them as bargaining chips to squeeze concessions out of Western nations.