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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