UK Report: Errors Made in Sailors Kidnap

By DAVID STRINGER
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 21, 2007; 11:39 PM

LONDON -- British diplomats were too slow to contact a key official who helped broker the eventual release of 15 sailors and marines held hostage in March by Iran, a report by lawmakers said Sunday.

Officials also bungled a decision that allowed some of the personnel to sell their stories to media organizations after their release, despite strong reservations from some sectors of government, Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee concluded.

The British sailors and marines were searching a merchant ship in the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Iraq, when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway.

Iran claimed the crew had strayed into its territorial waters, a charge Britain denied, and held the sailors hostage for 13 days. Several of the captured sailors were paraded on Iranian television and "admitted" trespassing in Tehran's waters.

The sailors later said they were blindfolded, bound and faced constant psychological pressure during their detention.

In their report, the lawmakers said Britain had made no application to hold talks with Ali Larijani, Iran's nuclear envoy and an influential foreign policy figure, for seven days after the sailors were seized on March 23.

"Although the Government was making every effort to resolve the situation ... its application to speak to Dr. Ali Larijani could and should have been made much earlier," the report said.

Larijani gave an interview to Britain's Channel 4 News on April 2, signaling that the Britons would not necessarily be put on trial in Iran _ a key sign negotiations were possible, the committee said.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser spoke to Larijani on April 3, and a day later the sailors were freed, an event Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a gift to Britain.

Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, told the committee that access to Larijani had not been a problem in the past. "It appears odd that an application was not made earlier in the process," the report said.

Lawmakers said Britain placed too much emphasis on using the United Nations Security Council to pressure Iran, and failed to win a U.N. statement that backed London's assertion that the sailors were in Iraqi waters when seized.

"The fact that the government appears not to have been able to achieve its main objectives at the U.N. brings into question the wisdom of its tactical approach," the report said.

Committee members also criticized a defense ministry decision to allow the released personnel to sell their accounts of the crisis to the media.

Lord David Triesman, a minister at the time of the kidnap, said the Foreign Office had indicated it would be a "significant mistake" to allow the sailors to conduct interviews.

Allowing the sailors to appear on television and in newspapers was "a disturbing failure of judgment" and "wholly unsatisfactory," the report said.

Though the crew had returned home to an initially warm welcome, public feeling quickly turned when some sold their stories. One sailor, Arthur Batchelor, was lampooned after he revealed he had wept when his Iranian captors stole his iPod.

A military inquiry into the saga, reported on in June, said there was no single error that led to the sailors' capture, and no cause for disciplinary action. A second independent inquiry slammed the decision to allow the seized troops to sell their stories.