Boris Johnson will for the first time hold a face-to-face meeting with Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, where he will be asked to disclose whether Iran has demanded a ransom for her release.

Johnson and his consular specialists are due to meet Ratcliffe at the Foreign Office on Wednesday in an effort to persuade him that diplomats are leaving “no stone unturned” to secure her release from an Iranian jail.



Ratcliffe is likely to ask to accompany the foreign secretary on his imminent visit to Tehran so he can see his wife, who has been held largely in solitary confinement since April 2016.



Ratcliffe and his MP Tulip Siddiq are also expected to ask for Johnson’s plan to secure her release; diplomatic protection for her following the foreign secretary’s gaffe; and for Ratcliffe to accompany Johnson on the trip to Iran also with diplomatic protection.

The final requests are for Johnson to admit he is wrong to say there are no new charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a result of his mistake, and information on whether Iran have asked for a ransom, which the Sun reported on Wednesday but the government has always denied.

Profile Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe? Show Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is an Iranian-British dual national who has been jailed in Iran since April 2016. She has been accused of attempting to orchestrate a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic. She and her three-year-old daughter, Gabriella, were about to return to the UK from Iran after a family visit when she was arrested. Since then, she has spent most of her time in Evin prison in Tehran, separated from her daughter. In January 2019 she went on hunger strike for three days in protest against being denied medical care in Tehran’s Evin prison. In March, the UK Foreign Office granted her diplomatic protection, a step that raised her case from a consular matter to the level of a dispute between the two states. Zaghari-Ratcliffe worked for BBC Media Action between February 2009 and October 2010 before moving to Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agency’s charitable arm, as a project manager. Her family has always said that she was in Iran on holiday. Photograph: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/PA

The visit would also give Ratcliffe a chance to see his daughter, Gabriella, who was with her mother when she was arrested. Gabriella is staying with her grandparents in Tehran.

Johnson is due to visit Tehran in the next few weeks.

There are Foreign Office concerns that Ratcliffe might be arrested by the Iranian police even if he were accompanying the foreign secretary. Ratcliffe has not so far tried to go to Iran, partly because of visa difficulties and the possible threat of being arrested.

Earlier this month Johnson blundered in suggesting Zaghari-Ratcliffe may have been visiting Iran to train journalists rather than being on holiday. His error, for which he has now apologised, led parts of the Iranian state media to claim Johnson had revealed the truth about her visit.



Richard Ratcliffe holds a photo of his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and daughter, Gabriella. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

She has already been in jail for more than 18 months and is now facing fresh charges that could extend her detention. She is said to be close to a nervous breakdown and had fears she was developing cancer.

Johnson’s Tehran visit had originally been conceived as a marker of strengthening Anglo-Iranian relations in the wake of the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, but without a breakthrough ahead of his visit the meetings with Iranian officials are likely to be dominated by the issue of her release.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Sir Richard Dalton, former UK ambassador to Tehran, cautioned against raising false expectations of the visit, adding that negotiating her release was likely to be a “long haul”.

Ratcliffe is pressing for the foreign office to assert diplomatic protection for his wife, rather than consular protection, a move that he claims would raise the status of her case and send a signal to the Iranians about the UK’s determination to secure her release.

Dalton expressed doubts, probably shared within the Foreign Office, of the efficacy of asserting diplomatic protection since there is no third party legal body to which the UK could appeal if Iran continued to refuse her release.

There are also legal doubts about whether a dual national, a status not recognised by Iran, can be given diplomatic protection. The Foreign Office stressed it has been engaging in the last fortnight with Ratcliffe’s advisers to discover what practical purpose they feel would be served in asserting diplomatic protection.

Ratcliffe would also like a clearer statement from Johnson about the abuses in the Iranian justice system.

Writing in the London Evening Standard this week, he complained: “The Foreign Office refuses to acknowledge that she is being held because she is British. It also refuses to acknowledge the abusive nature of the Iranian legal system. Nazanin was not allowed to speak at her trial. Her lawyer was prosecuted for defending her, so a case is now open against him. Her new lawyer – a specialist human rights lawyer – has not been allowed to come to any hearings so far. This is not meeting the standards of fair trials, yet the Foreign Office has not said this.”