Exclusive: Siddiq letter to Tugendhat asking for Zaghari-Ratcliffe inquiry

LabourList can exclusively reveal the letter sent by Labour MP Tulip Siddiq today to foreign affairs committee chair Tom Tugendhat asking for an inquiry into the case of her constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, has told the committee chair that she is “incredibly grateful” to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss “for her work on securing the release of Nazanin” but still has concerns.

“I believe that Nazanin’s detention was unnecessarily prolonged by the UK government’s refusal for many years to pay the historic debt of £400m that the UK owed to Iran,” the Labour MP told Tugendhat.

It is understood that the committee chair is likely to grant the request for an inquiry by the committee. Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has also backed the idea of an independent investigation into Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case.

Below is the full text of the letter from Tulip Siddiq to Tom Tugendhat.

Dear Tom,

I am writing to request that the foreign affairs committee conduct an inquiry into the UK government’s handling of the unlawful detention of my constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the wider issue of hostage taking by Iran.

I am incredibly grateful to the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs for her work on securing the release of Nazanin. However, I believe that Nazanin’s detention was unnecessarily prolonged by the UK government’s refusal for many years to pay the historic debt of £400m that the UK owed to Iran.

Were your committee to agree to this inquiry, I would hope that its terms of reference would be widely drawn. However, I would like to suggest that, amongst other issues, the committee should investigate the following:

• The incident in 2013 where three Iranian officials travelled to London to negotiate the repayment of the the historic debt but were arrested when they arrived at Heathrow and detained in a UK Detention Centre. I understand that they had been issued with UK visas by the UK Consulate in Istanbul after full disclosure by them of their reasons for travel, which the FCDO must have in any event known since they were to negotiate with British government officials. No proper answer has ever been given by the UK government about why these arrests happened. Former Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Jack Straw has said that ‘the (said) saga would have led to powerful elements inside the Islamic regime deciding that they would need to take more direct action to obtain repayment of the debt.’
• The deal that the UK and Iran supposedly made in 2021 to repay the debt and bring Nazanin home, and why that deal collapsed.
• The lengthy delay of repaying the debt and the associated return of Nazanin.
• The wider issue of Iran’s hostage taking policy.

I hope you agree that, with British citizens still being held hostage in Iran, it is of vital importance that we learn from the mistakes that were made in Nazanin’s case. I would be delighted to meet with you in person to discuss a future inquiry.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Tulip Siddiq MP
Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Kilburn