Iran to Try British Embassy Staff Workers

Clearly the regime is confidant enough in its hold on power that they think they can get away with this outrage. This is all about connecting the dots between the protesters and the west.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

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A top Iranian cleric said Friday that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.

The announcement by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati came a day after the European Union demanded Iran release the staffers, who were detained on June 27. Britain is pressing EU countries to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran in protest.

Jannati, a powerful hard-liner who is close to Iran's supreme leader, told worshippers during a Friday prayer sermon in Tehran that the detained staffers "made confessions."

"In these events, their embassy had a presence," he said, referring to the post-election turmoil. "Some people were arrested. Well, inevitably, they will be put on trial."

He did not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the eight embassy personnel arrested on June 27 had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held.

Without Pre-Condition.

Update from the Times:

In London, the Foreign Office said it was urgently checking reports that the Iranian authorities planned to put two of its local employees on trial. Nine staff members were seized after the unrest sparked by Iran’s disputed presidential elections on June 12 and as many as eight of them were subsequently reported to have been released. But the precise number still detained held was not clear.

Iranian state television said all but one of the nine had been released. But Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, said “more than one” remained in custody.

The Iranian authorities accused the local employees of fomenting and orchestrating protests, but pro-democracy Iranians ascribed the violence on the streets to a widespread crackdown by government security forces.

In London, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office, speaking in return for customary anonymity under civil service rules, said: “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating. Allegations that our staff are involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”

Britain has been pressing the European Union to withdraw all its ambassadors from Tehran in protest. European officials have indicated that any talk of a trial — or show trial — would hasten those measures.

News reports on Friday quoted Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the influential Guardian Council and an ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as telling worshipers at Friday prayers in Tehran that the local employees would be tried after they “made confessions.”

I am sure they did.