The husband of locked-up British citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is seeking urgent updates from the Foreign Secretary after Iranian authorities signalled her release had been sanctioned.
Richard Ratcliffe said it was not clear what was delaying a return to the UK for his wife, a British-Iranian dual citizen serving a five-year prison sentence after being convicted of spying charges in 2016.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, denies the charges and maintains she was in Iran to introduce her young daughter Gabriella to her parents.
He said: “We’ve been getting better messages from the Iranian side, from the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office in Iran.
“This week the head of prison said, ‘Oh yes, I’ve approved her release, I approved it a number of months ago’. So there’s been clearly things to hold on to, hopefully.
“Part of the aspiration of today’s message to the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is I would like to meet to ask what’s the blockage? What’s going on?”
“Therefore we will not be providing a running commentary on every twist and turn.“
