by Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI (Reuters) – Two Iranian women also with British nationality, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, detained for several years in Iran, were released on Wednesday and arrived in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman, television said Omani public.
“I am very happy to confirm that the unjust detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri in Iran has ended today. They will now return to the UK,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Twitter.
Antonio Zappulla, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which employs Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, called his release “a ray of light and hope” in a world in turmoil.
The foundation is a separate charity from Thomson Reuters and its subsidiary Reuters News.
Another Iranian national, who also has British and American nationalities, Morad Tahbaz, was granted leave on Wednesday.
This businessman and environmental activist was arrested in January 2018.
The announcement of the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri comes as British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Sky News on Wednesday morning that Britain was considering ways to settle an old debt of more than 400 million pounds (475 million euros) to Iran.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri were released after Britain repaid the debt.
Iran is asking Britain to reimburse 400 million pounds paid in 1979, during the shah’s reign, for the purchase of 1,750 Chieftain armored vehicles and other military vehicles, almost all of which have never been delivered to the Islamic Republic established after the Islamic revolution of 1979.
Arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, project director for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was later sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly seeking to overthrow Iranian religious authorities, what his family and his employer deny.
After serving this sentence, she was sentenced to an additional year in prison in April 2021 for propaganda against the Islamic Republic.
Anousheh Ashouri, a humanitarian worker, was sentenced in 2019 to ten years in prison for spying for the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, as well as two years in prison for “illegal enrichment”, according to Iranian justice.
(Report Parisa Hafezi, with the contribution of William James in London; French version Myriam Rivet and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)