Beth Rigby Interviews… Anoosheh Ashoori

• World exclusive TV interview with the engineer detained in Iran for nearly five years
• Chancellor Rishi Sunak also on tonight’s show

In a world exclusive broadcast interview, Anoosheh Ashoori speaks to Sky News’ Beth Rigby Interviews… about his near five-year struggle to get out of Iran, after being held in prison on spying charges.

The British engineer was released from Tehran last week alongside Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, after the UK Government paid off a £400m legal debt from the 1970s owed to Iran for an order of armoured vehicles and tanks. Now at home with his family, Ashoori has given his first television interview to Sky News, describing his initial arrest by authorities and the conditions of life inside one of the world’s most notorious prisons.

The 67-year-old, who twice attempted suicide and went on hunger strike while being held in Evin Prison, will reveal how he and his family remained strong through the ordeal and his continued battle to ensure no others remain wrongly behind bars in Iran.

At a press conference earlier this week, Zaghari-Ratcliffe told reporters she should have been freed six years earlier and questioned how it took five foreign secretaries to get her home. Beth Rigby will put those statements to Ashoori, hearing his thoughts on the government’s actions to help free him, and others held by Iranian authorities.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will also be on tonight’s show a day after he presented his Spring Statement to Parliament. Beth Rigby will speak in-depth with the Chancellor about his family life, and the background that led him to become one of the country’s most important decision-makers.

Beth Rigby Interviews… is on Sky News at 9pm on Thursday. Also available on the Sky News YouTube channel.

Download and listen to the Beth Rigby Interviews… Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and on the Sky News App and website.

For further information, please contact:
Sian Parry, Head of PR, Sky News
sian.parry@sky.uk

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