Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman jailed for spying in Iran who was temporarily released this week, is facing an anxious wait to learn whether she will have to return to prison.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released on Thursday after more than two years in jail, in a move that took her and her family by surprise. She was expected to return to Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday to continue serving her five-year term unless the authorities approved a request for an extension to her prison leave.

Her lawyer applied for a temporary extension on Saturday, according to her husband, Richard Ratcliffe. “That taste of freedom has been so uplifting for her, and it would be very hard to have to go back in. It would be crushing given the last few days. Let’s hope the extension can be made,” he told the Observer on Saturday.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe release suggests Iran is softening stance Read more

All of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s previous requests for temporary release since her arrest in April 2016 have been rejected, so when the authorities told her she could leave the prison for three days it came as a surprise.



She was given 10 minutes to get ready and leave. Outside the prison gates, she borrowed a phone from a stranger to tell her brother she had been released. She was later reunited with her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who has been in the care of her Iranian family since she was 22 months old.

Ratcliffe, who remains in the UK, said: “We’re getting a bit twitchy and on edge ... Nazanin is getting a bit twitchy and she’s a bit worried, with Gabriella asking her: ‘Mummy, when do you have to go back to prison?’ every few hours or so.

“This morning, Nazanian took Gabriella to nursery. Gabriella wanted her to see the teacher and the nursery. It was quite emotional for her, she wanted to show her to her friends and say ‘look, this is my mummy, and she’s out of prison’.

“Yesterday, she gave Gabriella a bath,” he said. “She was really pleased, Gabriella really enjoyed the bath and she had enjoyed playing with her and then drying her hair and brushing her hair … and she said she was struck by how Gabriella now has her own opinions. She can make her bread and so on. Of course two years ago she couldn’t do.”

Play Video 0:39 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: husband hopeful of full release – video

Ratcliffe said his wife has been overwhelmed by the support she had received in the UK: “She was really moved by seeing all the photographs and being on the front pages of all the newspapers.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested as she and her daughter were about to board a flight back to the UK after a visit to her family in Iran. She was accused of attempting to orchestrate a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic, spying and running “a BBC Persian online journalism course which was aimed at recruiting and training people to spread propaganda against Iran”. She denies the allegations.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s temporary release is also partly thanks to an extraordinary public campaign mounted by her husband. He is at the Edinburgh Fringe festival this weekend, attending a Q&A at a play about his wife called Nazanin’s Story, by Emi Howell.

“Watching that play yesterday was completely a different experience,” he said. “It’s a sad story, but it’s a much easier story to watch with a happy ending … we haven’t had the full happy ending, but certainly a lot happier than last time I saw this.”