The husband of the imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said he is worried for her safety after a US drone strike killed a powerful Iranian general.
Richard Ratcliffe said: “Things are getting much worse again between the US and Iran, but also between all of us and Iran.”
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I sit here partly worried for what that means for Nazanin, partly worried what that means for my in-laws, sat in their ordinary living room in Tehran where they’re all really worried.”
The White House said Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad in the early hours of Friday. Suleimani, who ran Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria, was targeted while being driven from Baghdad airport by local allies from the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU).
A Pentagon statement said: “General Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran three and a half years ago on spying charges, which she denies.
Ratcliffe spent Christmas reunited with his five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who had been living with her grandparents in Tehran and visiting her mother in prison.
Ratcliffe is now focusing on securing a meeting with Boris Johnson. At a press conference in October, he said: “We will be looking to meet with Boris as soon as possible. This is an area where he can make a difference. He took responsibility for it as foreign secretary … he hasn’t yet delivered for us.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s local MP, Tulip Siddiq, told the same press conference it was “not good enough” to have Gabriella back home while her mother remained incarcerated in Iran.
She said Zaghari-Ratcliffe wanted to know why the UK government was not doing more, after the Australian government secured the release of a British-Australian dual citizen, Jolie King, and her Australian boyfriend, Mark Firkin.
