UK-Iranian Zaghari-Ratcliffe 'has passport returned' amid hopes of release

British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her British passport returned, British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq said on Tuesday.

"I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back," Siddiq, who is the member of parliament for where Zaghari-Ratcliffe used to live in London, said on Twitter.

"She is still at her family home in Tehran. I also understand that there is a British negotiating team in Tehran right now."

I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back.

She is still at her family home in Tehran. I also understand that there is a British negotiating team in Tehran right now.

I will keep posting updates as I get them.#FreeNazanin

— Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) March 15, 2022

Earlier on Tuesday, Zaghari-Ratcliffe's lawyer said he was "hopeful there would be good news soon", as Tehran and London pressed on with talks about a long-standing £400 million pound (US$520 mln) debt.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

Her family and the foundation, a charity that operates independently of Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters, deny the charge.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation said that she had travelled to Iran in a personal capacity and had not been doing work in Iran. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is a charity organisation that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.

Iran's clerical establishment says Britain owes the money that Iran's Shah paid up front for 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other vehicles, almost none of which were eventually delivered after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 toppled the U.S.-backed leader.

Iranian officials did not comment when asked whether the amount has been paid by Britain as reported by some Iranian outlets. Both Tehran and London had repeatedly rejected associating the debt Britain owed to Iran with the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who served out most of her first sentence in Tehran's Evin prison, was released in March 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic and kept under house arrest. In March 2021, she was released from house arrest but she was summoned to court again on the new charge. In April 2021, she was then sentenced to a new term in jail on charges of propaganda against Iran's ruling system, charges she denies. However that sentence has not yet started and she is banned from leaving the country.

(Reuters)