British charity worker freed in Iran, returns home after 6 years in prison

March 16 (UPI) -- A British-Iranian woman who's an executive for a charity has been released after six years in captivity and was allowed to return to Britain, officials said on Wednesday.

Iranian authorities sentenced Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, to a five-year sentence in 2016 after accusing her of trying to overthrow the government in Tehran. She was in the city visiting family.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the British government have long denied the charges.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released -- along with Anoosheh Ashoori, a woman who was arrested and jailed in Iran in 2017 on spying charges.

"I am very pleased to confirm that the unfair detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori in Iran has ended today, and they will now return to the U.K.," Johnson said in a tweet.

"The U.K. has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones."

British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq also said that before she left Iran, Zaghari-Ratcliffe had remained "under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard."

Along with her original sentence, Iranian authorities gave Zaghari-Ratcliffe a second jail sentence last April for purportedly spreading propaganda against the Iranian government. She lost an appeal in October.

Sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe said Wednesday was an emotional day.

"It feels like we're on the home run now but until she leaves that airport we can't believe it," Ratcliffe said before Zaghari-Ratcliffe left the country, according to BBC News.