Who is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?

It’s the news story we can all finally celebrate and the one that reduced Good Morning Britain star Susanna Reid to tears on live TV earlier today.

After being detained in Iran in April 2016 and separated from her family, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, is finally back in Britain.

The British-Iranian had spent nearly six years in detention in Iran for allegedly plotting against the Iranian government.

British-Iranian retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, another dual national held by Iran, has also been released and reunited with loved ones at the same time as Nazanin.

But who is Nazanin – and what was she accused of?

How did Nazanin come to be arrested?

Before her arrest in 2016, Nazanin lived in London with her accountant husband Richard Ratcliffe, and their daughter Gabriella, then five.

She worked as a project manager for the charity Thomson Reuters Foundation and was previously employed by BBC Media Action, an international development charity.

After Nazanin had been to visit her parents in Iran in March 2016, taking her young daughter too, she was detained at an Iranian airport the following month and had her passport confiscated.

What was she accused of?

Iranian authorities alleged the mum-of-one was plotting to topple the government in Tehran – but no official charges were made public.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said she was leading a "foreign-linked hostile network" when she visited.

Nazanin says she had been taking her daughter Gabriella to celebrate the Iranian new year and visit her parents.

Both the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action issued statements saying she was not working in Iran but was on holiday there.

What happened next?

In April 2021, after spending the final year of her term on parole at her parents' home in Tehran, Nazaninwas sentenced to a further year in prisonand a one-year travel ban, after being found guilty of propaganda against the Iranian government.

She subsequently lost an appeal against her second conviction.

For six years, she and her family had endured hell at the hands of a regime that held her captive and repeatedly played psychological games.

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The charity worker suffered extreme psychological torture, solitary confinement and hardship in jail in Tehran thanks to the trumped-up spying charges she was convicted of.

What did the British government have to say?

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss denounced the decision as "an appalling continuation of the cruel ordeal" the mother was going through.

Successive foreign secretaries tried unsuccessfully to secure her release.

Announcing Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release, Ms Truss said the debt had been settled "in parallel", and "in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations". She also admitted that she wasn't sure the pair would actually be released "until the last minute".

The breakthrough came after Britain paid £393.8m to settle a debt related to a tank order placed by Iran in the late 1970s.

What did her husband Richard do?

Mr Ratcliffe said his wife was told she was being held in order to force the UK into settling a multi-million pound dispute, which dates back to the 1970s.

Iran claimed that the UK owed a £400m debt, relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks.

What has Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said?

Nazanin has mostly spoken publicly through her husband. According to Richard, his detained wife understandably missed her daughter "all the time" and was in a "pretty fragile" state of mental health.

How has Gabriella coped with her missing mum?

After the arrests, the little girl’s passport was confiscated and she was cared for by her grandmother, her dad and other relatives in rotation, as the family fought to free Nazanin from jail.

Gabriella communicated with her mum through Skype on and off during this time. The little girl was five when she was hastily granted permission to fly home to the UK. On October 11, 2019, she returned to her father in the United Kingdom to start school.

She turns eight in June.

Gabriella was heard asking "is that mummy?" before her mother walked down the plane's stairs at the airport in Oxfordshire.

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