Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: held to a £400m ransom
Boris Johnson has ‘a moral duty to set this right’, said The Observer

It’s hard to imagine a more devoted husband than Richard Ratcliffe, said Clare Foges in The Times. Since his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Iran on trumped-up charges in 2016, he has campaigned tirelessly for her release.
Fearing that she might be given a further sentence, over the past three weeks he “starved himself on Whitehall, a desperate man playing his last card, muscles wasting, body creaking”. His hunger strike has now ended, and his family is still no closer to a solution; after five years of promising to “turn over every stone”, the Government has achieved nothing.
Yet there is a simple solution: ministers could settle the UK’s debt of some £400m to Iran. In 1971, the UK agreed to sell 1,500 tanks to the Iranians. After the Shah fell in 1979, however, “we refused to deliver the tanks but kept the cash” – a bone of contention ever since. It’s clear Zaghari-Ratcliffe won’t be released until the debt is paid. International courts have ruled that we should pay up. So why don’t we?
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Because it would be a bad idea to give “an illegitimate hostile theocracy” hundreds of millions in cash, said Henry Hill on Conservative Home – even if there were any guarantee that it would secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release, “which there is not”. It would break sanctions on Iran, which might well use the £400m to “export terror” across the region. And it would be seen as “a ransom payment by other groups which might be tempted to kidnap British citizens”. Ministers cannot ignore all this “because of one human story, however agonising”.
Even so, Boris Johnson has “a moral duty to set this right”, said The Observer. He made a “disastrous blunder” early on in the case, by telling Parliament that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Tehran to teach journalism, when she was merely visiting family. This was used by Iran to justify her jailing. He then made a personal promise that the £400m would be paid, to smooth things over with the Iranians.
Ratcliffe believes that setting this price, and then failing to honour the promise, is why his wife is still being held today. At any rate, the Government’s current approach is clearly failing. Johnson needs to “take responsibility and bend his will to freeing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe”.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
NASA reveals ‘clearest sign of life’ on Mars yet
Speed Read The evidence came in the form of a rock sample collected on the planet
-
Former top FBI agents sue, claiming Trump purge
Speed Read The agents alleged they were targeted by a “campaign of retribution”
-
Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk shot dead at 31
Speed Read Kirk was holding a debate session at Utah Valley University
-
Jeffrey Epstein's secrets
Feature Six years after his death, conspiracy theories still swirl around the sex trafficker. Why?
-
Voting: Trump's ominous war on mail ballots
Feature Donald Trump wants to sign an executive order banning mail-in ballots for the 2026 midterms
-
Trump threatens critics with federal charges
Feature Days after FBI agents raided John Bolton's home, Trump threatened legal action against Chris Christie
-
Epstein files: Maxwell courts a pardon
Feature A new prison transcript shows Ghislaine Maxwell praising Trump as 'a gentleman' while denying his involvement in the Epstein scandal
-
Pentagon readies military deployment in Chicago
Feature The Pentagon is preparing to deploy thousands of Illinois National Guard members to Chicago after Trump threatened to send troops into other major cities
-
Trump: Taking over the private sector?
Feature Donald Trump has secured a 10% stake in Intel using funds from the Biden-era CHIPS Act
-
Lisa Cook and Trump's battle for control the US Fed
Talking Point The president's attempts to fire one of the Federal Reserve's seven governor is represents 'a stunning escalation' of his attacks on the US central bank
-
'Three Pads' Rayner: a housing hypocrite?
Talking Point As real estate moguls go, the Deputy PM is 'hardly Donald Trump'