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

The European Union reacted sharply Saturday 8 August to the trial in Iran of a French embassy and two British embassy employees, as well as a French student and teacher of French, saying that the Iranian government was acting against the EU itself, and it would respond accordingly. Twenty-four-year-old Clothilde Reiss apologized to the court and said she had been mistaken when she protested with others against the results of the recent Iranian election. She risks up to five years in prison. Hossein Rassam, a 44-year-old political analyst at the British Embassy, also reportedly apologized, in his case for inciting unrest, with the quotes coming from Iranian media, since international media were barred from the trial. Le Monde (Fre) and Times, UK