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Iran releases rebuttal footage of
sailors playing chess
The
Truth Will Set You Free
Monday April 9, 2007
The Brits really should've quit while they were ahead . . .
Too late now.
Iranian
television broadcast video footage Sunday showing a British navy
crew playing chess and watching television during their nearly two-week
captivity in Iran, saying the footage refutes the sailors' and marines'
claims that they were mistreated.
Crew members told reporters two days ago after returning to Britain
that they had been blindfolded, held in isolation, frightened
and coerced into falsely saying that they had entered Iranian waters
before they were seized.
Some of the video clips, briefly aired on Iran's state-run Arabic satellite
TV channel Al-Alam, showed several of the eight sailors and seven
marines dressed in track suits and playing chess and table tennis.
Other clips showed crew members watching soccer on television
and eating at a long table decorated with flowers. Crew members
could be heard laughing and chatting.
A newscaster who spoke over the beginning of the footage said the
video proved "the sailors had complete liberty during their detention,
which contradicts what the sailors declared after they arrived in Britain."
On Friday, Lt. Felix Carman, who was in charge of the crew when it
was captured March 23, said the sailors and marines were only allowed
to socialize for the benefit of the Iranian media.
"We were kept in isolation until the last few nights, when we were
allowed to get together for a few hours, in the full glare of the Iranian
media," Carman said at a news conference. "But that was very
much a setup, very much a stunt for Iranian propaganda."
The crew members also insisted that they were in Iraqi waters when
they were seized.
Iran dismissed the sailors' news conference as propaganda.
Two days before their release, Tehran had pledged not to show more
video of the captured crew.
So? And Lt.
Carmen pledged not to change his story as soon as he was returned
to the UK.
Obviously, that wasn't upheld. Why should Iranians keep their end of
the bargain?
Besides, even if Iranians treated the sailors kindly merely as a publicity
stunt - at least they treated them kindly!
I'd rather be pampered for Iranian tv - than be tortured for American,
British, or israeli 'national security.'
The British Foreign Office did not immediately return a phone
call seeking comment Sunday.
How could they?
Basically, the UK has strangulated themselves with this one - there's
no way they can come out of it looking good
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