Posted on 08/08/2009 5:42:40 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
BRITAIN’S fraught relations with Iran suffered a further setback yesterday when a local member of its embassy staff on trial in Tehran “confessed” to espionage. He said Britain had provided financial assistance to Iran’s reformists to undermine the hardline clerical regime during June’s disputed presidential elections.
Hossein Rassam, a political analyst with the embassy, said a budget of £300,000 had been allocated by the embassy to establish contacts with political groups, individuals and activists.
He said he had personally made contact before the election with the campaign headquarters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the pro-reform candidate who claims he was robbed of victory by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“My main responsibility was to gather information from Tehran and other cities by setting up contacts with individuals and other influential parties and political groups and send reports to London,” he said.
He said because of Britain’s hostile policies towards Iran and fear of exposure, the embassy employed local staff to establish such contacts.
Rassam was paraded in Tehran’s Revolutionary Square in a mass show trial along with dozens of opposition figures accused of crimes, including rioting, spying and plotting a “soft overthrow” of the regime after the elections. Apologising for his “mistakes”, he appealed for clemency. The charge of espionage carries the death sentence in Iran.
His appearance seemed to catch the Foreign Office unawares. The first the embassy knew about it was when diplomats spotted him in television coverage of the trial. The Foreign Office said his trial was an “outrage” and directly in contravention of assurances it had received from the Iranian authorities after they had released him and eight other local staff arrested during the postelection violence.
Rassam was paraded together with Clotilde Reiss, a Frenchwoman, who was arrested on July 1 as she prepared to leave
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Sounds like this guy was an Iranian plant.
Notice the finger on the guy sitting next to him. A signal?
>> Notice the finger <<
I predict that when they take that guy to the gallows, the finger will already have been removed.
Iran dissidents: Behind confessions, prison ordeal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2311101/posts
“Sounds like this guy was an Iranian plant.”
He is reading a statement that was written for him to read aloud while on state tv.
If these were the guys the Rev. Guard grabbed a few weeks ago I think some ‘convincing’ by Iranian secret police / Basijj is responsible for the ‘confession.’
Take a look at what some people confessed to after being in the custody of the KGB.
Judging by the previous conduct of the British sailors captured by the Iranians, the Brits have no pride. They’ll say anything to save their skins. All that the Iranians had to do was glare at them, and they confessed to anything. Nothing like having allies that wilt under pressure. It’s a good thing that they only fought the French throughout history.
When I was in Iran, that finger meant nothing to them. Now give them the thumbs up and you have the expected reaction you would get here from the finger.
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