Richard Ratcliffe with Nazanin

THE husband of a charity worker locked up in Iran on “ludicrous” charges of alleged spying has taken the unusual step of writing to residents in West Hampstead to tell them that he is voting for Labour’s Tulip Siddiq after she continually raised the case in Parliament.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, has been jailed for five years after being detained as she tried to return from a family holiday with daughter Gabriella. She has already spent more than a year in prison amid increasing concerns for her well-being. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe has led the campaign to secure her release with the warning in his letters to neighbours this week that “the claims are ludicrous” and that she had been “held in prison in Iran as a political bargaining chip for over 400 days.”

His letter added: “It is not my place to tell you how to vote. But I can tell you I am voting for Tulip, and have asked my friends to do the same. Genuinely, I feel Nazanin, Gabriella and I are lucky to have her.” Gabriella is staying with her grandparents in Iran as Mr Ratcliffe and campaigners press for Nazanin’s release. Many believe only a diplomatic agreement will free her after her last appeal was turned down earlier this year.

“Tulip has stood alongside us – coming with us a number of times to Downing Street and the Foreign Office, bringing her own daughter to a protest at the Iranian embassy, helping us to build wide support for Nazanin – across Parliament and different parties – highlighting her case and those of other British prisoners held unfairly in Iran. She has raised Nazanin at PMQs, and even offered ideas for a new parliamentary bill for protections for the UK citizens caught abroad.” Ms Siddiq wrote a lengthy opinion piece on Nazanin’s plight in the New Journal last year, and the case has received major press attention including national coverage.

Both Prime Minister Theresa May and foreign secretary Boris Johnson have been urged to place the issue at the top of talks with Iran. Ms Siddiq’s chief rival in the general election Claire-Louise Leyland, the leader of the Conservatives at the Town Hall, said she too was ready to step in to make sure Nazanin would not be forgotten in her cell. “We’ve done a lot in supporting the campaign and to support her husband,” said Councillor Leyland.

“As an MP, one can lobby in a different way to the way one can as a councillor. Certainly, if I am elected, I would continue to make sure the people in government are aware of her situation and they are doing everything they can to help her. It is shocking and awful that this has happened to a mother from West Hampstead who is part of our community.”

She said community campaigners had also played a major role in the Nazanin campaign, including neighbourhood activist Linda Grove. “Linda has done so much to raise awareness of the situation and done an awful lot to give her husband support from the community,” said Cllr Leyland. Richard Ratcliffe with Nazanin