Boris Johnson slammed by jailed Iran mum Nazanin's husband for denying all blame

The husband of a British mum jailed in Iran has savaged Boris Johnson for trying to deny all blame for her fate.

Richard Ratcliffe slammed the Tory leadership frontrunner for claiming a gaffe he made in 2017 made “no difference” to his wife’s case.

Mr Ratcliffe’s wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is in an Iranian prison on spying charges.

When he was Foreign Secretary, Mr Johnson wrongly told MPs she had entered the country to teach journalists.

But Nazanin always insisted her 2016 visit to Tehran was for her daughter to meet her grandparents.

Last night, in the BBC’s Tory leadership debate, Mr Johnson said his comments “didn’t, I think, make any difference” to the time she spent in jail.

Mr Johnson added: “If you point the finger at the UK, all you are doing is exculpating those who are truly responsible, which is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

But today Richard Ratcliffe – who is on hunger strike outside the Iranian Embassy in London – contradicted him.

Asked about Mr Johnson’s 2017 comments, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Of course they had consequences.

“The main difference they had was, obviously, they enabled a propaganda campaign that was run against Nazanin.”

Mr Johnson made his original mistake when giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

Nazanin’s employer, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said she was seeing family and urged Mr Johnson at the time to correct his “serious mistake”.

He was confronted with his record last night by BBC leadership debate presenter Emily Maitlis, who said he was “frequently careless” with language.

Mr Ratcliffe added today: “Obviously it’s the Iranian authorities that imprisoned Nazanin and the Iranian authorities that have a practice of hostage diplomacy.

“But any the same time the Foreign Secretary’s words then were important and promises have consequences.

“Perhaps the bigger problem he did was when essentially the press was briefed that money was going to be paid. Expectations were raised and he said no stone was going to be unturned –  and then that didn’t happen.

“We’ve gone from ‘no stone unturned’ to ‘not my fault’.”