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A British-Iranian woman detained by Iran since 2016 was released on Wednesday, her lawyer said.
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Iran accused Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe of being a spy. Her family and the UK deny this.
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She was held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran’s capital.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman who had been detained by Iran since 2016, was released Wednesday, her lawyer said.
As of early Wednesday afternoon local time, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was heading to Tehran airport to leave the country, Hojjat Kermani told the Reuters news agency.
Anousheh Ashouri, another British-Iranian dual national who had been held by Iran since at least 2019, was also released and on his way out of the country, Kermani said. He was sentenced to ten years in jail in 2019 and accused of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and “acquiring illegitimate wealth,” claims that he denies.
Tulip Siddiq, the member of parliament for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency, confirmed the news of the release, tweeting: “Nazanin is at the airport in Tehran and on her way home. I came into politics to make a difference, and right now I’m feeling like I have.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation — a charity that does not work directly with the news agency — was arrested in Iran in 2016 and accused of being a spy.
An Iranian court convicted her of spying, training journalists, and plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment. She, her family, and the British government have repeatedly denied the allegations.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken at a Tehran airport in April 2016 when she was returning home to London with her young daughter after visiting her parents.
She was held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, the Iranian capital.
She was denied permission to seek medical attention even after she described finding lumps in her breast and being in a fragile mental state.
A spokesman for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office declined to comment on the reports, but said more information would be coming.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and the British government had been appealing for her release for almost six years.
Video shows BBC News presenter Joanna Gosling choking up as she announced news of the release.
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