Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe told Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo how the ongoing conflict between Iran and the US and Israel is “very worrying”
Words by Suzanne Elliott
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who endured five years in a Tehran prison after being arrested while visiting family, has told ITV News the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “should have stood trial”.
The Ayatollah was killed in the first wave of US and Israeli strikes on Tehran on Saturday morning.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said there was lots of “fear and uncertainty about what happens next” after the death of Khamenei, mixed — for many Iranians — with “happiness and relief”.
Khamenei, who succeeded the Islamic Republic’s founding leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as Supreme Leader in 1989, was a ruthless revolutionary. During his three decades as leader, the 86-year-old built the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard into a powerful force that underpinned his rule.
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The latest protests in January, which began over the deteriorating economic situation and escalated to become a wider outcry against the theocratic government, were suppressed with force.
More than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history, according to documents reviewed by Iran International’s Editorial Board.
“Ideally, it should have been a fair trial,” Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said of Khamenei’s death. “He should have stood a trial in a public court in front of the people whom he had committed crimes against”.
“It was a very easy exit for him, frankly. But I also understand, you know, for those people who were cheering in the streets, both inside Iran and outside, that there was a moment of happiness, but I think there was a lot of also fear and uncertainty that comes with it.”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said: “If there is going to be any transition, it’s going to be long and it’s going to be, in my opinion, not much different to what it used to be.
“That makes me so worried about what is going to happen next,” she said. “The political structure will not automatically become democratic.”
But, she said, there was “quiet hope” that with the death of Khamenei, there was a path to change.
“I think at the moment there is probably a quiet hope…They [Iranians] are fearful of what’s going to happen next but it’s definitely the beginning of the end. It’s not going to happen instantly and overnight.”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe reacts to the death of Khamenei: “This is not how he should have gone”
She said she had been “unsettled” ever since hearing the news of US-Israel strikes on Saturday, adding: “I put some podcast on and I went and sat at my sewing machine. That’s what makes me really calm down and focus.”
After hearing about Khamenei’s reported death from a friend, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe described feeling “in shock” and disbelieving of whether or not it was confirmed.
“What if we wake up in the morning [and] that wasn’t the truth. So just being a bit cautious on how we reflect on such news,” she said.
She insisted that the “UK government must stand with the people of Iran” and that policy “cannot be this incoherent”.
“There was a moment of happiness and relief… but also there is a lot of fear and uncertainty that what comes after that”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, was arrested in 2016 on charges of plotting to overthrow the government during a visit to her parents with her 22-month-old daughter Gabriella.
Her husband, Richard, fought tirelessly to bring his wife back to Britain after years of campaigning. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was finally freed in March 2022.
Speaking to ITV News alongside his wife, Mr Zaghari-Ratcliffe said: “I felt the UK policy on Iran could be quite contradictory over the years that we were campaigning.
“It still feels quite contradictory. It still feels that it’s not focused on keeping people safe, such as Brits being held imprisoned in Iran, and British-Iranians who are there. “
He referenced the plight of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, a British couple from Sussex currently being held in an Iranian prison, saying the British government’s response has been “kind of victim-blaming”.
They were arrested while travelling through Iran in January 2025 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage — charges they deny.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella Credit: Family handout/PA
“One of the promises that the government made after Nazanin’s case was that they were going to have an improved approach to dealing with hostages… They haven’t kept those promises,” he added.
“So every time I’ve ever seen a news report, the briefing that the government has put out has been that the problem was that they ignored travel advice and that they shouldn’t have gone there…No one deserves to be a hostage.”
“I find it really traumatising that I cannot contact my family”
Following Saturday’s strikes on Tehran and other major cities in Iran, the conflict has escalated and threatens to drag the wider Middle Eastern region into war.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said the situation in Iran was “very worrying” and that it was “traumatising” not to be able to contact her elderly parents there.
“I try not to check the news, but it is impossible not to think, are they safe? It’s just such worrying times. It has been very, very difficult to get hold of them.”
She said this could be a pivotal moment for Iran’s future, adding: “I think we are close. Maybe not that close, but definitely closer”.
“There is hope and Iranians, just like so many other nations, deserve to live free and to be happy.”
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