Freed Britons say `confessions' coerced
tinydancer
said Friday they were blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked
into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had
entered Iranian waters.
They said there was no doubt the 15 crew members were in
territorial waters when they were seized by heavily armed boats of Iran's
Revolutionary Guard. They also said their jailers had singled out the only
woman among the captives for use in propaganda.
Iran, which has been celebrating the incident as a victory, quickly rejected
the charges, dismissing a news conference held by six of the freed personnel
as "propaganda" and "a show." Iranian state TV accused British leaders of
"dictating" the crew's statements.
Appearing a day after being flown home to reunions with their families, the
eight sailors and seven marines reported undergoing constant psychological
pressure and being threatened with seven years in prison if they did not say
they intruded into Iranian waters.
They said their captors also lined them up against a wall one night to the
ominous sound of weapons cocking behind their heads.
"At some points I did have fears that we would not survive," Operator
Maintainer Arthur Batchelor, 20, the youngest sailor among the captives,
told The Associated Press in an interview.
Speaking at the news conference with five colleagues, the boat team's
commander, Royal Navy Lt. Felix Carman, said the prisoners were harshly
interrogated during 13 days in custody and slept in stone cells on piles of
blankets.
"All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and
presented with two options: If we admitted that we'd strayed, we'd be on a
plane to (Britain) pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in
prison," he said.
Carman, who was one of the captives who appeared in Iranian videos seeming
to admit being in Iran's waters, disavowed his earlier comment.
"Let me make this clear — irrespective of what was said in the past — when
we were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard we were inside
internationally recognized Iraqi territorial waters," he said.
Royal Marine Joe Tindell said he came to believe one of his colleagues had
been executed on the second day of their ordeal.
The 21-year-old said the crew had believed they were being taken to the
British Embassy in Tehran to be released, but were instead dumped in a
holding facility.
"We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands behind our backs, heads against
the wall. ... There were weapons cocking," Tindell told British Broadcasting
Corp. radio. "Someone said, I quote: 'Lads, lads, I think we're going to get
executed.' ... Someone was sick and as far as I was concerned he had just
had his throat cut."
Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air said the crew, operating in two inflatable
boats in the Persian Gulf on March 23 checking vessels for smuggled goods,
was confronted by two Revolutionary Guard boats.
"They rammed our boats and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs and
weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us," Air said.
He said the team quickly decided that a gunbattle would risk a major
escalation of tensions with Iran and that they were too lightly armed to
resist anyway.
"From the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an
option," Air said. "Had we chosen to do so, then many of us would not be
standing here today. Of that I have no doubts."
While much of Britain rallied behind the returning crew, some critics
complained about the prisoners appearing in videos in which they appeared to
admit entering Iranian waters and offered regrets.
Military commanders have stood behind the crew. They didn't break rules by
complying with the Iranian demands, the head of the Royal Navy, Adm.
Jonathon Band, told the BBC. "I think, in the end, they were a credit to
us," he said.
The most visible of the seized sailors during their captivity was Leading
Seaman Faye Turney, a 26-year-old mother of a young girl and the first crew
member to be interviewed on Iranian television. Turney did not attend the
news conference.
Air said Turney was singled out by the Iranians, who put her in solitary
confinement and told her all the men had been released. "She was under the
impression for about four days that she was the only one there," he told
reporters.
In an interview with AP, Air said there were a "few incidents when our
safety was at risk," citing occasions when the sailors were held separately,
making them more vulnerable.
He said the crew faced a difficult task when complying with their captors'
requests for them to admit publicly they were in Iranian territory — a fact
they knew to be untrue. "We were very careful about what we said and what we
didn't say," he told AP.
In a clip shown on Iranian television, for instance, Air — pointing to a
map — said that "we were seized apparently at this point here on their maps
and on the GPS they've shown us, which is inside Iranian territorial
waters."
Tony Blair's office refused to comment on the crew's description of their
treatment in Iran, but the White House said the reports of ill-treatment
were disappointing.
"If what they described is accurate, then that would not seem to be
appropriate behavior and action," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe
said. "It's unfortunate that the Iranians ever detained the sailors to begin
with."
Iran's state television showed parts of the news conference, but with no
sound. Without revealing their specific comments, a newscaster said the
Britons "retreated from their confessions," while an unidentified analyst
charged their statements were "dictated" by British officials.
Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, also criticized the
British statements, the TV report said. "Propaganda actions and shows can't
cover up actions by the British military men and their repeated violation in
illegal entry into Iran's territorial waters," he said.
Earlier, during Friday sermons at mosques around Iran, government clerics
touted the end of the standoff with Britain as a victory for Iran.
Some told worshippers the British government apologized for the crews' entry
into Iranian waters. The British government says it never apologized, and
even Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged before the crew's
release that Britain stuck to its stance that the crew was seized in Iraqi
waters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_britain;_ylt=AuFnydmrLy7Qvev76rRKvqes0NUE
Bo Raxo
> ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England - British sailors and marines
> said Friday they were blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked
> into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had
> entered Iranian waters.
>
Guess the Iranians did learn something from Gitmo. They just managed
to do it in days instead of years.
>
> "Let me make this clear - irrespective of what was said in the past - when
> we were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard we were inside
> internationally recognized Iraqi territorial waters," he said.
>
Nobody doubts that, including the Iranians.
>
> Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air said the crew, operating in two inflatable
> boats in the Persian Gulf on March 23 checking vessels for smuggled goods,
> was confronted by two Revolutionary Guard boats.
>
> "They rammed our boats and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs and
> weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us," Air said.
>
> He said the team quickly decided that a gunbattle would risk a major
> escalation of tensions with Iran and that they were too lightly armed to
> resist anyway.
>
> "From the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an
> option," Air said. "Had we chosen to do so, then many of us would not be
> standing here today. Of that I have no doubts."
>
Here's the part that makes me shake my head at how lame the reporting
on this story is. Does anybody bother to ask the question: when a
military operation goes awry, what went wrong???
While I'm no military expert, the answer seems pretty damn obvious:
lack of readily available air cover. You have forces on the water,
they need some firepower to defend themselves, you dispatch helicopter
gunships if the distance is close-in, fighter jets if it isn't. If
you look at the area on a map, we're not talking vast distances to
American air bases in Iraq, and IIRC there is a USN aircraft carrier
group on patrol not very far away. When the two Iranian boats
appeared, a radio call for help should have brought down a dozen
helicopter gunships to tilt the balance of power. About the only
problem is that they were *so* close to Iranian waters that the
cavalry may have arrived once they'd seized the crew and were back on
their side of the line.
Not sure that should have stopped the rescue mission, though, since
they'd illegally seized the sailors and marines in Iraqi waters.
Between the Brits and the Americans, somebody should have had air
cover on hot standby, and no doubt the resources were in place but
there wasn't the right coordination and planning in advance to trigger
the rescue in a matter of minutes. Hopefully they've learned their
lesson, with a little better planning there should be no need for the
kind of ordeal this group went through.
Bo Raxo