Gavin Williamson blocked release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Johnson reveals

Former defence secretary refused to sanction £400m deal over fears it could help fund Hezbollah, ex-PM says in memoir Unleashed

Sir Gavin Williamson vetoed a deal to bring Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe home from Iran five years before she was finally released, Boris Johnson has revealed.
He says that during a visit to Tehran as foreign secretary in December 2017, he reached an agreement to secure the British citizen’s release in return for £400 million that the UK had owed Iran since the 1970s.
The Treasury and the Foreign Office signed off on the deal, he says, but Sir Gavin, who was defence secretary at the time, refused to sanction the deal on the basis that the money might be used to fund the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was finally released in March 2022 when Mr Johnson, as prime minister, used his executive authority to resurrect the deal.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen, was detained in April 2016 as she was about to fly back to London after visiting her parents in Tehran and was falsely accused of spying.
In Nov 2017, Mr Johnson appeared before the foreign affairs select committee in Parliament and wrongly said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran to train journalists.
He was accused of worsening her situation because training independent journalists in Iran is regarded as sedition.
Mr Johnson claims in his book that his gaffe did not result in any further charges being brought against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, nor was her prison sentence lengthened, but he went to Tehran the following month determined to bring her home.
In his memoir, Unleashed, he writes: “I went to see President Rouhani in his mirror-walled palace and we sat on little chairs facing each other, as if for a TV interview. He was a beaming, soft-spoken man who seemed to have fond memories of his time at university in Glasgow.”
The president complained about the tough international sanctions that were being imposed on Iran, and Mr Johnson says that he told him that he “knew of one particular issue that might be resolved to the financial benefit of the people of Iran”.
In 1979, shortly before he was deposed, the Shah of Iran had placed a £400 million order for British tanks and armoured cars, but because of the coup by the Ayatollah Khomenei they were never delivered. The money had sat in an escrow account and the Iranians wanted it back.
Mr Johnson suggested that he could arrange for the money to be repaid, though officially “there could be no linkage” with Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case.
He writes: “Yes, [Rouhani] said, nodding and smiling, there could be no linkage, but perhaps the consular cases could be resolved. I left the meeting elated. I was sure that Rouhani was sincere, and that we had an agreement.”
When he got back to London and told Theresa May, the prime minister at the time, about the deal, she said that all relevant departments had to sign off on it.
Sir Gavin refused, saying: “I won’t send money to Hezbollah so they can buy weapons to kill our boys.”
Mr Johnson writes: “It was no use. I have always been friendly with Gavin, who is a keen student of politics and power, and I could see what was really going on.
“While Nazanin languished in Iranian captivity, with many blaming me, there were quite a few people who were savouring my moral torment – not least, I suspect, in Number 10.”
He says Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “trapped by one of those petty power plays that are part of British politics”.
When he became prime minister in 2019 he resurrected the deal, which took until March 2022 to realise, and “even then, at the last minute, the White House tried to stop us handing over the cash”, which he describes as “pretty rich” given the billions they have spent to bring home their own hostages over the years.
There was, however, a logistical problem in getting the money to Iran, because banks would not touch the money for fear of falling foul of international sanctions against Tehran and being prosecuted by the US courts.
In the end, Mr Johnson says, someone at the Foreign Office came up with a solution.
“I won’t say what it was,” he writes, “only that it involved the Post Office savings bank.”
Iran has previously said the cash deal for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release was first mooted by Philip Hammond when he was foreign secretary in 2016. It was also opposed by Mr Johnson’s successor as foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
On Friday Sky News political editor Beth Rigby said she has pulled out of an interview with former prime minister Boris Johnson at the Cheltenham Literature Festival after being told she could not make a recording or transcript of the talk.
Mr Johnson had promised to “reveal what really happened during my time as Mayor, Foreign Secretary and PM” during the interview.
It comes after an interview with the BBC was dropped earlier in the week after presenter Laura Kuenssberg mistakenly sent him her briefing notes.
In a post on X, Ms Rigby said: “I was looking forward to interviewing Boris Johnson at Cheltenham but regrettably I can’t go ahead with the event because I am not allowed make an audio recording or transcript of the interview.
“As a journalist in conversation with a former PM at a public event, I can only proceed if we do it on the record. I’m sorry to have to pull out.”
Unleashed by Boris Johnson will be published by William Collins on 10th October (£30); books.telegraph.co.uk