darragh macintyre reports.ay in iran when she was arrested in april 2016. she was convicted on spying charges that have been widely condemned as baseless, and sentenced to five years in jail. successive british governments and officials have raised her case with iran without result. her husband richard ratcliffe, reunited with their daughter last year, believes his wife is being held hostage. i would absolutely believe that hostagetaking is a tool of iranian diplomacy. it has become normalised as an acceptable thing to do. the us government agrees. it says nazanin zaghari—ratcliffe and a number of western citizens are being held by iran as diplomatic leverage. do you consider those western citizens that are being held in iran as hostages? yes. it's a tool of statecraft, it's part of iran's foreign policy to take people hostage who are innocent, and then trade them later for some objective that they think advances their own objectives. iran denies hostagetaking but the uk does have something iran wants, £400 mil