Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe latest news: British aid worker arrives back in UK after six-year ordeal

The children of Anoosheh Ashoori have said their first conversation with their father after he returns home from Iran will be an “extraordinary” moment when “our suffering is going to end”.

Mr Ashoori, 68, a retired civil engineer, was arrested in August 2017 while visiting his elderly mother in Tehran, and held in Evin prison. During his time in detention, he was subjected to torture, according to Amnesty International UK.

The husband and father is on the same flight back to the UK as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Mr Ashoori’s daughter Elika, 35, told the PA news agency the news had been “very, very sudden” and the family were “over the moon” after five years of turmoil.

Speaking alongside her brother Aryan, 32, she said: “The hardest part would be when he tried to take his own life.

“He wanted to remove himself from the equation, in part because they were threatening us, our safety. They were telling him they were monitoring our movement.

“Him trying to take his own life was, in a sense, a way to protect us. I think that’s as dark as this story got.”