Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe meets with UK premier after her release

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) - Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national arrested in 2016 on charges she denies, and her family met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 43-year-old charity worker, was arrested in 2016 after being accused of plotting to overthrow Iran’s government.

She was in Iran visiting family, and has denied the charges. She spent six years in prison before being freed last March.

While Johnson was the UK’s foreign secretary in 2017, he wrongly told a parliamentary committee that she had been training journalists in Iran.

Iran then used Johnson’s comments to extend her detention, citing it as evidence that she was working against the state when she was in the country, rather than just visiting family as she insisted.

This is the first time she has met Johnson since he made those comments, and since her release. The meeting, in which British foreign office officials were also present, lasted for an hour.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local MP Tulip Siddiq said after the meeting: “She was sitting next to the prime minister and she told him very clearly and categorically that his words have had a big impact on her and that she had lived in the shadow of his words for the best part of four and a half years.

“And I had to say the prime minister looked quite shocked when she said that.”

Siddiq said she was proud Zaghari-Ratcliffe said what she said because the former detainee “wanted to make it clear to him that she's happy now, she's grateful, she appreciates the fact that she's home now, but there was a time when his words had a big impact.”

Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband, was asked by local media whether Johnson apologized for his comments, to which he replied: “Not explicitly.”

He told local media: "It was two years ago that I stood here having seen the prime minister and I came out fairly forlorn, in the sense that we were having to battle for longer.

"I stand here now with the battle over for us. I think there are lessons to learn, there is a wider problem.

"We talked about the mistakes made at the end. It was rough at the end, and I think, when Nazanin is ready to talk about it, that is something that we need to go through.”

“It is not like when this is over that you feel angry. Relief is what I honestly feel,” he added. "I don't think it was an abrasive meeting."

The family also pushed Johnson to appear and answer questions before a parliamentary inquiry by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee into the government’s handling of hostage-taking incidents.

Johnson agreed to “look into that” but it is unusual for prime ministers to give evidence to that kind of committee.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case was extremely high-profile in the UK, in large part due to the extraordinary efforts undertaken by her husband, Richard, to raise awareness and lobby for her release.

Siddiq was also extremely active, having lobbied five British foreign secretaries over the years to secure her release.