'Like Santa arriving' as freed UK-Iranians reunite with families
The families of two British-Iranians who returned to the UK after years imprisoned in Tehran on Thursday spoke of their overwhelming relief and gratitude at finally being reunited.
Charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and 67-year-old retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori landed at a Royal Air Force base in southern England in the early hours.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's jubilant seven-year-old daughter Gabriella shouted "Mummy!", before she and her father Richard Ratcliffe were together again.
"Seeing that footage of her touching down in the arms of Richard and Gabriella was just really overwhelming," said Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law, Rebecca Ratcliffe.
"It feels a little bit like... Christmas morning, waiting for Santa and then Santa finally arriving," she told ITV.
The family has had many previous "close calls" during her detention, when hopes were raised of her release, which made them more cautious this time.
But she added: "We struggled to believe she was coming home until we saw her on that flight."
Ashoori's family was also at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to welcome him home after five years.
"Happiness in one pic," his daughter Elika Ashoori tweeted, alongside a photo of the two reunited families standing side by side.
- 'Nice cold beer' -
She earlier told Channel 4 News they planned to welcome him home with a "nice cold beer", good food and a reunion with the family dogs.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in Tehran in 2016 as she visited family with Gabriella, who was then not yet two.
She was accused of plotting to overthrow the regime and jailed for five years. An additional 12-month sentence followed last year for protesting outside the London embassy of the Islamic republic in 2009.
Ashoori, from southeast London, was arrested in 2017 and jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel.
Both strongly denied the charges and their families believe they were held as political prisoners until a decades-old debt between the UK and Iran over a cancelled defence contract was settled.
Their release Wednesday came as the government confirmed it had paid the £394-million ($515-million) debt, and as major powers inch closer to renewing the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna.
Both families have campaigned relentlessly for their releases, with Richard Ratcliffe staging two hunger strikes in 2019 and last year.
He conceded before his wife's return that there would likely be "bumps" as she adjusts to life back home.
"There is a recovery process -- you can't get back the time that is gone, that's a fact. But we live in the future and not the past, so we'll take it one day at a time.
"I think it is going to be the beginning of a new life, a normal life, and hopefully a happy family."
- 'One step at a time' -
Before her return, Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been receiving advice from Terry Waite, the former Church of England negotiator held hostage in Beirut for nearly five years from 1987 by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad group.
"I said, Nazanin when you come out, take it as if you are coming up from the sea bed, if you come up too quickly you will get nitrogen in the blood and you will become seriously ill," he told LBC radio on Wednesday.
"If you come up gently, one step at a time, then you will be fine."
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law also noted the family also expect Gabriella to need time to come to terms with her mother's return.
"I think it's difficult for her (Gabriella) to comprehend," Rebecca Ratcliffe added.
"This is a little girl that for most of her life hasn't known a childhood with both her parents."
The immediate family are initially staying in foreign ministry accommodation before returning home to north London, relatives said.
