A detained British embassy employee in Tehran is to be put on trial as the supposed orchestrator of the mass protests that followed last month’s bitterly disputed Iranian presidential election, despite Britain’s insistence that the charges against him are false.
Hossein Rassam, 44, is accused of being the “kingpin” and key strategist behind a purported embassy attempt to foment street demonstrations after the 12 June poll, which resulted in the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has dismissed as “wholly without foundation” the notion of British involvement in the protests that brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets for 10 days after the election.
The accusations against Rassam, the embassy’s chief political analyst, are the most specific yet since his arrest on 27 June along with eight other employees, who have since been released.
He was already known to be facing accusations of “acting against national security”, a vague catch-all charge often brought against political detainees. Rassam has been denied access to his lawyer, Abolsamad Khorramshahi, who said that he had not even received official rights of attorney over the case yet.
The latest allegations against Rassam, who is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison, were leaked to >>>
