Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband hits out at Iran arrest video

Footage of a Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being arrested in Iran has been released as part of “cruel psychological game”, her husband has told Sky News.

The footage, which was broadcast on Iranian state TV, shows the British-Iranian pushing a baggage cart along at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran before handing her passport over to an unidentified man in April 2016.

He asks the mother-of-one for her name and whether she has all her luggage, and she is then questioned inside a room at the airport by a representative of the public prosecutor, who tells her he has an arrest warrant.

Richard Ratcliffe said he believed the footage had been released in response to his wife’s threat to go on hunger strike on Monday, as she protests against being denied access to a doctor and medication.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe saw the video in prison, he said, bringing the “violation” of her arrest back to her.

“I find I can’t watch it,” he added. “It’s too close. It just brought back all the memories of those first days and just how traumatic that was.”

Mr Ratcliffe said he feared the whole period of his wife’s incarceration was being filmed, and that the Iranian authorities could “drip feed this out whenever they want to, just as a cruel psychological game”.

Since Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced her potential hunger strike, her rations have been cut and his phone calls have been reduced in duration, he said.

He added that the the instinct of the prison authorities was to show who was in charge, “which I think what this footage of her being arrested is all about”.

The hunger strike will be for “three days to begin with and then let’s see”.

Mr Ratcliffe said his wife had given the prison a week to respond and “this was the response we saw”.

In the video, the representative of the public prosecutor can be heard saying in Farsi: “The investigating magistrate has issued an arrest warrant for you and you are barred from leaving the country.”

He adds: “You must go with us to the magistrate’s office and there he will arraign you on your charges. Your problem has to be handled this way.”

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who turned 40 on Boxing Day, is then heard saying she will speak to her mother about her arrest and tell her that she is being held “for unclear reasons”.

The footage ends with her checking her clothes and backpack and being taken to a car.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Hampstead, north London, was later charged over claims that she was “plotting to overthrow the Iranian regime”.

She had been in Iran to visit her family for Nowruz, the Persian New Year festival, with her young daughter.

Press TV, the state-owned and controlled English and French language Iranian news channel, later claimed she was involved in “plans for regime change in Iran”.

She was convicted last year, despite her denials.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is campaigning for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be released, tweeted: “Nazanin is innocent and must be allowed to come home.

“How can the Iranian authorities allow an innocent mother to feel she needs to resort to this, simply for justice and access to medical care?”

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has threatened to take such action before, following her temporary release from her prison cell in the Iranian capital last summer.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe has previously revealed that his wife has suffered several panic attacks in jail, which left her with numbness in her legs and headaches.

(c) Sky News 2019: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband hits out at Iran arrest video