The British-Iranian was speaking publicly for the first time since her release from Iran last week
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said it should never have taken the government so long to secure her release.
Appearing at a press conference in Westminster, she said: “What’s happened now should have happened six years ago. I shouldn’t have been in prison for six years.”
The British-Iranian was speaking for the first time since her dramatic return to the UK last week.
She was freed after spending six years of detention by Iran.
Her release came after the UK government paid a £400 million debt to Iran dating back to the 1970s, although both governments have said the two issues should not be linked.
“I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years,” Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe told a press conference at Portcullis House.
“How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home?
“We all know… how I came home. It should have happened exactly six years ago.”
She also said she had been told by Iranian authorities shortly after her arrest that they wanted “something off the Brits” and that they would not let her go until they had got it.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe appeared alongside husband Richard, who has campaigned for her release, and her constituency MP in London, Tulip Siddiq.
Before the event, she also met privately with Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained while visiting her parents in Iran in April 2016 and accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.
She was given a five-year sentence in September 2016 and in April of last year was given another year on charges of propaganda against the government.
She has always denied the charges against her.
Another British-Iranian national, Anoosheh Ashoori, was released at the same time as Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, while another man, Morad Tahbaz, who has British, Iranian, and American citizenship, remains in detention in Tehran.
- 3 days ago
