British-Iranian ends 15-day hunger strike in Tehran jail

LONDON — A British-Iranian mother jailed in Tehran since 2016 on sedition charges she denies has ended her hunger strike after 15 days, her husband said on Saturday.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told BBC Radio that his wife had eaten some porridge with apple and banana.

“I’m relieved because I wouldn’t have wanted her to push it much longer,” said Ratcliffe, who also went without food for 15 days in solidarity with his wife.

Ratcliffe had spent much of that time picketing Iran’s embassy in London, urging whoever is to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May to make his wife’s case a priority.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, began refusing food to mark her daughter Gabriella’s fifth birthday.

She was arrested in April 2016 as she was leaving Iran after taking then 22-month-old Gabriella to visit her family. 

She was sentenced to five years for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government.

A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the media group’s philanthropic arm, she denies all charges.

The case has added to long-standing tensions between Tehran and London, which is a major arms supplier to  Saudi Arabia.