World news ::
A closed Tehran court has sentenced a senior local employee of the British embassy in Tehran, Hossein Rassam, to four years in prison for fomenting violence, reports say. The sentence has not been communicated officially. The UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said the sentence was unacceptable, and dismissed the charges as “wholly without foundation”, reports the Times.
Rassam, the embassy’s political counsellor, was arrested late June with eight other embassy employees, following the mass disturbances after the disputed presidential election. He was put on trial with a Frenchwoman. He is free on bail after having been released from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison in August. Reuters,The Times
