Aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has accused the United Kingdom and Iran of treating her like a political pawn, saying it should not have taken six years for officials in London to secure her release from detention in Tehran.
Appearing at a news conference in parliament in London, the 44-year-old said she would always be haunted by her time in prison but would slowly work to rebuild her life with her seven-year-old daughter and husband away from the spotlight.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds both UK and Iranian citizenship, returned to the UK last week from Iran, where she was held for six years after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.
She returned alongside another dual citizen, Anoosheh Ashoori, after the UK resolved what it called a parallel issue – repaying to Iran a 400 million pound ($A714 million) debt dating back to 1979 for the purchase of military tanks that were never delivered.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she had been told shortly after her arrest that the Iranians wanted “something off the Brits” and she could not understand why it had taken six years, and five different foreign secretaries, for it to be resolved.
“I mean, how many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?” she asked.
Read the article by Kate Holton and Elizabeth Piper in the Cessnock Advertiser.