TIMES ONLINE: Iranian employees of the British Embassy in Tehran face the prospect of a show trial after the regime said that they had admitted conspiring against the Islamic Republic.
The announcement, made by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, 83, the head of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, at Friday prayers, was a sharp escalation of the confrontation with Britain.
The British Government said that the charges against the arrested local staff were “wholly without foundation” and William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, called a show trial of British embassy staff in Tehran "utterly unacceptable".
The European Union’s 27 member states summoned the Iranian ambassadors in all EU capitals to make formal protests and stopped issuing visas to Iranian officials. A senior European diplomat insisted that the dramatic step of withdrawing EU ambassadors en masse from Tehran was still “very much on the table”.
Two of the nine Iranians arrested last weekend were still being held last night. Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many would be tried or on what charges, but the penalty for extreme cases of treason is execution. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that it was seeking urgent clarification on his announcement.
Officials feared that the employees’ “confessions” might have been extracted under duress or torture. British diplomats have not been given access to the two employees still held. >>> Martin Fletcher | Saturday, July 04, 2009
