Iran Says British Embassy Staff to Stand Trial

Paris — Brushing aside British and European efforts to seek the release of local British Embassy staff held in Tehran, the Iranian authorities indicated Friday that they planned to put some of them on trial — a move that could deepen crisis in diplomatic relations with the European Union and provoke the withdrawal of ambassadors.
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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.”

Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many of the British detainees would be tried or what charges they would face, news reports said.

Reuters quoted him as saying: “In these developments their embassy here maintained a presence in which individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have made confessions.”

The Guardian Council is an influential panel of 12 clerics whose responsibilities including vetting elections. Earlier this week it certified the disputed presidential vote that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, despite opposition claims of electoral fraud and huge protests on the streets.

Until Thursday, European Union diplomats meeting in Stockholm were searching for ways to resolve the standoff without withdrawing ambassadors from Tehran. But Swedish officials said an Iranian move to put the British Embassy personnel on trial would escalate the dispute and strengthen Britain’s demand for recalling the ambassadors.

The Iranian authorities have begun blaming foreigners for the recent unrest and have directed much of their ire at Britain.

Iran’s leaders are struggling to put the election, and the passionate dissatisfaction the results unleashed, behind them. Although the government managed to halt the huge protests days ago using tactics that included mass arrests, it has been unable, or unwilling, to silence Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate who says the election was stolen from him, and some of his influential supporters.

On Wednesday, Mohammad Khatami, a charismatic former president who remains extremely popular, made his strongest statements yet. He called the election “a coup against the republicanism of the system” and warned: “Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.”

He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests of demonstrators: “If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”

This week, the Interior Ministry said it would withdraw the permit for the Combatant Clergy, a political party to which Mr. Khatami belongs, as well as two other reformist parties that have supported him in the past.

Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Stephen Castle from Brussels. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto.