Middle East News

Jul 3, 2009, 11:09 GMT

Arrested British embassy staffers confessed, Iran clergyman claims

Tehran - British embassy staffers arrested and detained in Tehran for alleged involvement in recent protests over alleged election fraud have confessed, a senior member of the Iranian clergy claimed Friday. 'Do not take the issue easy, it is indeed more serious than believed,' Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said at a Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran. Two of the nine Iranian staffers detained are still reportedly in jail and might face a trial. The seven others have been released. Jannati - who is head of the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog, and a fierce supporter of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - charged that the protests against alleged election fraud were planned even before the June 12 presidential voting with the final aim to remove Iran's Islamic system. 'Their [Western] stupidity has indeed no borders,' the hardline cleric said. 'They think Iran is like Georgia or Ukraine where they can easily replace one system with another one. Their problem is they do not know at all the Iranian people.' The arrest and detention of the Iranian staffers of the British embassy has not only led to a bilateral crisis but also one with the whole European Union. While Iran is playing with the idea to revise diplomatic ties with Britain, France and Germany, the EU is planning to impose visa bans on Iranian officials and summon its ambassadors back from Tehran.

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