THE continued detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s by the Iranian authorities beyond her five-year jail sentence is “outrageous,” her husband Richard has insisted, as he unsuccessfully tried to deliver a 160,000-signature petition, demanding her immediate release.

Mr Ratcliffe, accompanied by his six-year-old daughter Gabriella, visited the Iranian embassy in London, but two police officers briefly appeared to try and prevent him approaching the building’s front door.

However, he was able to speak to someone inside over the intercom and asked if anyone inside could come and meet him; he was told: “No.” He also asked if there was any news about his wife but the person on the intercom said: “No, sorry,” before hanging up.

A small group of protesters held placards carrying the messages “Free Nazanin” and “still not forgotten”.

Mr Ratcliffe put his arm around his daughter as they both held a placard featuring a photo of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Gabriella used a pen to cross off the final day in a calendar that counted the days until “mummy comes back home” and read out messages of support for her mother.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42, a British-Iranian citizen was detained in 2016 after Tehran made widely refuted spying allegations.

A charity worker, who was employed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, she has strongly denied allegations she was plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s Government.

On Sunday, she finished the latter part of her sentence, undertaken under house arrest due to Covid-19, and had her ankle tag.

Yet her future remains uncertain as she must appear before an Iranian court in a week’s time to face new charges.

Mr Ratcliffe said the new court case “might be a stunt” or “it might be a real sentence”.

He said his wife’s lawyer thought she would get convicted but did not know how long a sentence she would receive.

“All along we’ve been kept guessing”, declared Mr Ratcliffe. “It has so often been both the possibility of good news and the possibility of bad news. The jeopardy remains. Until she’s home, she’s not.”

He said her lawyer had been told that the upcoming court proceedings in Iran were the continuation of a case from November over allegations of “spreading propaganda against the regime”.

Mr Ratcliffe explained: “My reading of it, at the moment, is it’s a warning shot to the British authorities; she is still being there as leverage.”

He said his wife had felt “euphoric” and had a “big grin on her face” after her ankle tag was removed. “Freedom definitely felt one step closer.”

Mr Ratcliffe admitted he was “quite cautious and guarded” but said that in the last 24 hours he had spoken to other people who had been through his wife’s experience and they said it “reminds them of their last few days”.

“Let’s hope they’re right,” he declared.

He said Sunday was a “happy day” but warned that as the week goes on “it may get a bit tougher”. This coming Saturday night and Sunday morning as his wife was due to appear in court again would be “pretty tense” in his household.

Mr Ratcliffe admitted in campaigning for his wife’s release “there are ups and down, there is almost a like perpetual jeopardy as to whether it’s good news or bad news”.

Speaking to reporters outside the Iranian embassy, he said: “I wanted to do something just to say listen she’s not forgotten. We’re still going to keep battling until she’s home.

“It is still the Iranian authorities that are holding Nazanin. They are now holding her even after the end of her sentence. That remains outrageous.”

He said he would be speaking to the UK Government on what it can do in terms of attending her next trial and visiting his wife, as well as “what is going to stop Iran from holding innocent British citizens hostage”.

Many have linked a long-standing debt running into hundreds of millions of pounds as central to the case, which has been dubbed “hostage diplomacy” by Jeremy Hunt, the former Foreign Secretary.

The UK is thought to owe Iran as much as £400 million over the non-delivery of tanks in 1979 with the shipment stopped because of the Islamic revolution.

Earlier, Lord McDonald, the former Foreign Office Permanent Secretary said: “We’re in the endgame, the Iranian system is behaving in a typical way, Nazanin has completed her sentence, something good yesterday happened with the removal of the ankle tag but the final moves have still to take place; this case has not yet ended.”

Mr Ratcliffe noted how Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, had spoken to him last week and told him: “’Listen, I can’t promise you it’s going to be this weekend but it feels like we’re close.’

“I’ve spoken to other former hostages and they say yes at the end it gets quite bumpy and this to them feels like the endgame. So, fingers crossed it is but also we might have many more months to go.”