Zaghari-Ratcliffe: UK government should do more for jailed Scot

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said the UK government should be doing more to help a Scottish man who has been in jail in India for six years.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arbitrarily arrested in 2016 and detained for six years before being freed in March last year.

She was widely seen as a hostage used by the Iranians to pressure the UK government to pay a long-standing debt, and was released once a diplomatic settlement was reached.

She said both she and Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, should have been better protected by the UK government.

Mr Johal, a Sikh activist, was arrested in November 2017 after travelling to India to attend a wedding, and is on trial accused of conspiracy to murder.

The UK government said it was committed to seeing Mr Johal's case resolved as soon as possible.

Speaking to BBC Scotland News on the sixth anniversary of his detention, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said that while the two cases were different in some ways, she believed ministers in London should be doing more for Mr Johal:

"It is not acceptable that the government to date has not called for his release," she said.

5 November 2023