Exclusive: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ‘most excited’ about taking daughter Gabriella to school

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is most excited about taking daughter Gabriella to school when she returns home, husband Richard Ratcliffe told LondonWorld.

She will be reunited with her family tonight, having not seen her seven-year-old daughter for over two years.

Nazanin, 44, and fellow British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori were freed today, after being detained in Tehran for six and five years respectively.

On his way to RAF Brize Norton to pick up his wife, Richard Ratcliffe told LondonWorld how excited daughter Gabriella was to be reunited with her mother.

“Gabriella is really excited to see her Mummy again, there’s a lot more singing in the house, lots more piano playing,” he said.

“She’s probably a little frustrated with how long Daddy has been on the phone but I think like last night there were kind of a lot of questions like: ‘Is Mummy really coming home?’

“We have frequently promised a lot and nothing has happened so it’s a lovely moment.

“Gabriella was disappointed she wasn’t in school today so she couldn’t tell her friends that Mummy was coming home.

“I’m looking forward to just doing the normal stuff, so it’s almost like picking up the life that we left behind, so pottering around the neighbourhood, going to coffee shops, going to the park, the life we had before.

“I think for Nazanin just being around and collecting Gabriella from school.”

Nazanin was arrested on April 3 2016 in Tehran Airport under bogus spying charges.

She was returning home to the UK with Gabriella, then just one, after visiting her family in Iran.

Nazanin has then spent the next six years in prison and at her parents home with a tag, and she hasn’t seen Gabriella since 2019, when her daughter returned to the UK.

Richard described the nail-biting days leading up to his wife’s release, when she was summoned by the feared Ministy of Intelligence in Tehran.

“On Sunday, I thought we were going to get bad news so I was really worried when she got summoned by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence,” he said.

“We had sent a really tough letter to the Foreign Office saying listen the nuclear deal is falling apart, so we need to do something quickly.

“Since Sunday. it’s been inching towards what looks like was going to be good news, but not quite believing it if that makes sense.

“So even this morning, she was taken to the airport at 7.30am our time, 11am in Iran, I didn’t really believe it.

“There were hours when she was stuck in a room there, and it felt like all sorts of games were happening and manoeuvring.

“It’s only probably when she got on the plane I believed it.”

Now the family plan on just trying to make their home as normal as possible.

“For Nazanin it’s wanting to make home home again,” he said.

“it’s about wanting to have a normal life and not being a public figure, which she didn’t get to choose at all, it just sort of happened around her.

“We can’t recapture what’s lost but we can make the most of what’s still ahead.

“The bad stuff never defines us so today is a happy day and let’s hope that it lasts a long time.”