WORLD / Middle East
Iranian official: Sailors may be tried
(AP/Agencies)
Updated: 2007-03-31 17:38
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's ambassador to Russia renewed a threat Iranian
officials made earlier this week, saying 15 British sailors held by Iran
could be tried for violating international law, Iran's state news agency
IRNA reported Saturday.
An image taken from Iranian television Friday March 30, 2007 showing
three British service personnel, at left a serviceman whose name was
given in Farsi as Nathan Thomas Summers, Faye Turney, 26, the only woman
amongst the British navy personnel, centre, and a man believed to be Adam
Sperry, some of the British personnel being held captive by Iran. [AP]
Gholam-Reza Ansari told Russian television Friday that Iran had launched
a legal investigation of the British sailors and said: "They will be
tried if there is enough evidence of guilt," IRNA reported on its Web
site.
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Iran aired television footage on Friday of another British sailor
"confessing" to trespassing in its waters, escalating a dispute over
Tehran's seizure of 15 navy personnel, as the EU deplored Tehran's action.
EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Germany deplored the seizure of the
Britons as a breach of international law and threatened to take measures
if they were not released soon.
Firing off new volleys in the propaganda war, Iran also released a third
letter attributed to the sole woman among those seized, saying she had
been "sacrificed" to the policies of Britain and the United States.
The EU move came after Britain, which on Thursday secured a less strident
UN Security Council condemnation of the Iranian action, vowed it would
work to further isolate Tehran over the crisis.
Prime Minister Tony Blair voiced his "disgust" at the latest broadcast of
the captive Britons and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she saw
no sign that Iran was seeking to solve the crisis.
"We've got to pursue this with the necessary firmness and determination
but also patience," Blair said.
Tehran has so far refused to bow to mounting world pressure to release
the 14 men and one woman seized in the northern Gulf a week ago and now
being held in a secret location.
Britain insists they were on a routine anti-smuggling patrol in Iraqi
waters under a UN mandate but Iran says they were in its territorial
waters.
"I would like to apologise for entering your waters without any
permission," the Royal Navy serviceman, identified as Nathan Thomas
Sommers, said in an interview broadcast on Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam
television.
The interview was interspersed with images of the sailor sitting with two
of his comrades, including the only woman, Faye Turney, smiling, and with
bowls of fruit and flowers in front of them.
Turney's latest letter, released by Iranian authorities in London, calls
for British troops to withdraw from Iraq.
Paul Beaver, a leading defence expert, said Turney's pullout call
suggested the letters were written under duress. "She knows that as a
serving member of the armed forces she has no public opinion on that," he
explained.
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