Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been reunited with her family after six years of ‘hell’ in Iran.

The British-Iranian mother met her husband Richard Ratcliffe on home soil on early this morning, after she was arrested in Tehran while taking their daughter Gabriella to visit relatives in April 2016.

The aid worker was pictured embracing her family just moments after touching down at RAF Brize Norton just after 1am.

Mr Ratcliffe has been a prominent campaigner in the battle to secure her release and went on hunger strike in late last year for 21 days.

He said earlier that he was ‘deeply grateful’ for her release and that he and Gabriella were ‘looking forward to a new life’.

The family have seen talk of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release intensify on multiple occasions, only to have their hopes dashed.

It comes after she flew out of the country along with fellow dual national Anousheh Ashouri.

Her MP, Tulip Siddiq, tweeted: ‘Nazanin is now in the air flying away from 6 years of hell in Iran. My heart goes out to Gabriella and Richard, as her long journey back home to them gets closer by the minute.’

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss confirmed that the Government had settled a long-standing £400million debt to Iran, that it had owed since the 1970s.

Hopes for the release grew on Tuesday, when it emerged that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been given her passport back.

Boris Johnson predicted negotiations could go to the wire, before reports emerged that she was heading to the airport and was then pictured on a plane out of Tehran.

She landed in Muscat in Oman before 4pm British time before taking a chartered jet to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent four years in jail and then two more under house arrest, separated from her family.

At the notorious Evin prison in the Iranian capital, she spent time in solitary confinement in windowless cells, declared hunger strikes and had medical treatment withheld.

A project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, she was detained as she prepared to fly back to the UK, when Gabriella was not even two-years-old.

The mum-of-one was later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment – charges she has always denied.

International rights groups have also condemned her treatment.

Mr Ashouri, who was jailed for a decade in 2019 and accused of ‘spying for Israel’, was also released today.

His family said they were ‘delighted’, adding: ‘This day has been a long time coming, and we are thankful for the efforts of everyone involved in bringing Anoosheh home.’

Announcing the news of both prisoners’ release, BBC news presenter Joanna Gosling choked up with emotion, saying: ‘Sorry, this is a moving moment because these are people who have been detained for some time.’

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