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The Iranian media is claiming a British Embassy worker has admitted to inciting unrest at today’s mass trial in Tehran.

Hossein Rassam has told the court he was ordered by the UK government to interfere on their behalf in recent protests against Iran’s disputed elections, according to the state news agency.

The 44-year-old political analyst is among those being paraded before cameras in a mass-trial accused of conspiring with western governments and opposition politicians.

Rassam claimed a budget of £300,000 had been allocated to embassy staff to establish contacts with Iranian political groups, influential individuals and activists, The Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

IRNA quoted Rassam saying that he made contacts in defeated opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign team.

Rassam, who could face charges of espionage, was alleged to have said: “My main responsibility was to gather information from Tehran and other cities by setting up contacts with individuals and influential parties and political groups and to send reports to London.

“The British Embassy, due to its hostile policies in Iran and fear of exposure of its contacts inside Iran, employed local staff to establish such contacts.

“I established such contacts based on orders from embassy officials.”

The prosecution argued Rassam’s testimony is evidence that the UK is trying to overthrow the Iranian government by provoking the recent protests against the disputed re-election of hardliner present Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rassam also mentioned Tom Burn and Paul Blemey, who were two British diplomats deported from Iran in tit-for-tat expulsions soon after the protests broke out.

Earlier the Foreign Office condemned the trial as an outrage.

A spokesman said: “This is completely unacceptable and directly contradicts assurances we had been given repeatedly by senior Iranian officials.

“We deplore these trials and the so-called confessions of prisoners who have been denied their basic human rights.

“Our Ambassador in Tehran has demanded early clarification of the position from the Iranian authorities.

“We will then decide on how to respond to this latest outrage.”

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was confident that Rassam has not engaged in any illegal behaviour.

Rassam was joined in court today by French national Clotilde Reiss, a language teacher accused by the Iranian authorities of "collecting information and provoking rioters". He was arrested with eight other embassy colleagues and released last month on bail.

Since the election Iran has arrested hundreds of people, including reformist politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers and human rights campaigners have accused the Iranian authorities of using violence and intimidation on suspects and witnesses to obtain false confessions.

Martha Mashington-Smyth wrote:
The British Government are outraged at the prospect of being found out more like. Miliband can be 'outraged' as much as he likes but the truth is that the UK and US have been undermining Iranian Governments since the 50's.
And for him to bleat about human rights is another high point of hypocracy for this Fabian Marxist Puppet.
August 8, 2009 6:33 PM

raha riz wrote:
hahahaha, I liked it, in fact I had never enjoyed myself when I saw the image of the local staff of the GREAT BRITAIN'S Embassy in Tehran! You're wondering I'm also one of those basiji militias! No, don’t take me wrong. I'm not. but I think Britain deserves this when they send their AMBASSADOR to the endorsement ceremony. Next time please send Gordon Brown or the Queen herself! You deserved this because you lack any sort of morale ethics and discipline nor self-respect.
August 8, 2009 5:06 PM

jonathan foster wrote:
Who the hell are the labour party to give any one a lecture on human rights. These are the people who wanted to detain citizens for 42 days with out charge, have everyones DNA on a database, put cameras all over the country, call Che Guavara a hero of the left and take away your right to protest out side parliment.
August 8, 2009 3:43 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6788433.ece

A young French academic and local staff of the British and French embassies stood trial Saturday with dozens of Iranian opposition figures and confessed to being involved in the country's postelection unrest.

Iran's opposition and rights groups have condemned the trial as a sham and say such confessions are coerced and scripted. Britain, which seemed caught off guard by the appearance of its embassy employee, called it an outrage, while France demanded the immediate release of its citizen.

The French academic and the two embassy employees took turns standing at a podium in the large, wood-paneled courtroom to make confessions before a judge seated between two large portraits for Iran's supreme leader and the Islamic Republic's founder.

Such confessions -- whether coerced or not -- have become the centerpiece of Iran's mass trial of more than 100 prominent opposition figures and activists, which began a week ago.