The family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent the last days of 2017 sitting around the phone at their London home hoping for the call to tell them she was being released from Evin jail in Tehran.
The situation seemed favourable. The charity worker was eligible for early release from her five-year jail sentence and the international campaign was growing in volume and effectiveness.
But it never happened. It was one of the many crushing disappointments for Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family over the next four years.
“All that noise didn’t work,” her husband Richard Ratcliffe said a year later. “We’re not hopeful so much as fearful of what the future might bring.”
Interviewed by The National at the time, Mr Ratcliffe said his worst-case scenario was that his wife would be forced to serve her entire five-year term, a prospect he found appalling to consider.
But on Wednesday, the couple eventually received the good news they had been waiting for, after her release was secured and confirmed, along with British-Iranian detainee, Anooseh Ashoori.
They have spent nearly six years apart since her initial arrest, with husband and daughter in London and mother at her family home in Tehran. They were connected only by video and voice calls.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's six years in Iran – in Evin, on an electronic monitor then eventually untagged but still stuck in the country – have been marked by trauma, depression, health fears and painful separation.
The cherished prospect of having a sibling for Gabriella diminished every year the 43-year-old mother was barred from leaving the country. Her husband sought to secure a visa but said promises from Iran to provide one were never fulfilled.
The campaign to free Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the news organisation, had continued during the service of five British foreign secretaries and suffered a series of setbacks.
They included a gaffe by Boris Johnson, who was foreign secretary when he suggested to MPs that she had been in the country to teach journalists.
The comment was seized on by Iranian media – although later withdrawn by Mr Johnson – and Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was brought back to court four days later. Campaigners claimed there was a direct link between the two incidents.
She was given three days of temporary leave in 2018 but was so traumatised by the prospect of a return to jail that she had to be talked out of a hunger strike. The day after she passed 1,000 days in prison in December 2018, she was visited by interrogators who offered her freedom in return for spying for the regime.
With her health failing under the stress of prison conditions, she spent six days in a psychiatric ward in 2019 handcuffed to a prison bed and monitored by five guards around the clock.
“It was proper torture,” she said in comments released by her family. “It was tough and I was struggling. But I am glad I survived.”
Mr Ratcliffe was prominent in demanding that the £400 million ($522.7m) debt owed by Britain to Iran over an aborted 1970s arms deal should be honoured to ease the path to freeing his wife and other dual-citizen prisoners held by the Iranians.
The dispute over the final figure continued to rumble through the British courts. The government accepted that it owed money but claimed it was difficult to pay back because of international sanctions on Iran.
“Clearly we are caught up in dispute between UK and Iran and that’s not our fault,” Mr Ratcliffe had said.
Today, current UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said repaying the "legitimate" debt was a priority. She did not confirm that it had been paid.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been out of prison since March 2020 but without her passport was unable to leave the country and the possibility of more time behind bars had always remained a threat.
With the family still separated, Gabriella had written to Mr Johnson, now UK Prime Minister, in December 2020 asking for her mother's return. "Dear Boris Johnson, please can you bring my mummy home for Christmas," Gabriella, now 8, had said. "She has been good."
Mr Ratcliffe’s outspoken campaigning had increasingly been the template for other families demanding that Iran release their loved ones.
Those families have publicly urged their respective countries to raise the issue of their relatives during conversations with Tehran.
Another opportunity to secure Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release had come with attempts to resume the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna.
A letter signed by 20 families of detainees and inmates said there could be no deal without all prisoners being freed and Tehran committing to end the practice of hostage taking. The return of her British passport on Tuesday signalled new hope for Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release, with confirmation she was at the airport in Tehran bringing joy to her loved ones.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
RESULT
Arsenal 2
Sokratis Papastathopoulos 45 4'
Eddie Ntkeiah 51'
Portsmouth 0
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U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES
UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
- Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs
- Thursday 20 January: v England
- Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh
UAE squad:
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith
The years Ramadan fell in May
The biog
Name: Maitha Qambar
Age: 24
Emirate: Abu Dhabi
Education: Master’s Degree
Favourite hobby: Reading
She says: “Everyone has a purpose in life and everyone learns from their experiences”
Honeymoonish
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If you go:
Getting there:
Flying to Guyana requires first reaching New York with either Emirates or Etihad, then connecting with JetBlue or Caribbean Air at JFK airport. Prices start from around Dh7,000.
Getting around:
Wildlife Worldwide offers a range of Guyana itineraries, such as its small group tour, the 15-day ‘Ultimate Guyana Nature Experience’ which features Georgetown, the Iwokrama Rainforest (one of the world’s four remaining pristine tropical rainforests left in the world), the Amerindian village of Surama and the Rupununi Savannah, known for its giant anteaters and river otters; wildlifeworldwide.com
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
Results
5pm Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,400m
Winner No Riesgo Al Maury, Szczepan Mazur (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
5.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 1,600m
Winner Marwa W’Rsan, Sam Hitchcott, Jaci Wickham.
6pm Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 1,600m
Winner Dahess D’Arabie, Al Moatasem Al Balushi, Helal Al Alawi.
6.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 2,200m
Winner Safin Al Reef, Connor Beasley, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
7pm Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 2,200m
Winner Thulbaseera Al Jasra, Shakir Al Balushi, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami.
7.30pm Maiden (TB) Dh 80,000 2,200m
Winner Autumn Pride, Szczepan Mazur, Helal Al Alawi.
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
Rating: 2/5
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
MATCH INFO
Europa League semi-final, second leg
Atletico Madrid (1) v Arsenal (1)
Where: Wanda Metropolitano
When: Thursday, kick-off 10.45pm
Live: On BeIN Sports HD
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
PROFILE OF INVYGO
Started: 2018
Founders: Eslam Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo
Based: Dubai
Sector: Transport
Size: 9 employees
Investment: $1,275,000
Investors: Class 5 Global, Equitrust, Gulf Islamic Investments, Kairos K50 and William Zeqiri
The years Ramadan fell in May
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
The five pillars of Islam
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Everton 1 Stoke City 0
Everton (Rooney 45 1')
Man of the Match Phil Jagielka (Everton)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
