Tehran, Iran – Iranian state TV showed video today of the 15 British sailors and marines who were seized last week, including a female captive who wore a white tunic and a black head scarf and said the British boats “had trespassed” in Iranian waters.
The British government protested Iran’s broadcast of the captured crew as “completely unacceptable.” The British military had earlier released what it called proof that its boats were in the territorial waters of Iraq – not Iran – when they were seized.
“Obviously we trespassed into their waters,” British sailor Faye Turney said on the video broadcast by Al-Alam, an Arabic-language, Iranian state-run television station that is carried across the Middle East.
“They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we’ve been arrested, there was no harm, no aggression,” she said.
Turney, 26, was shown eating with sailors and marines. At another point, she was seen sitting in a room with a floral curtains, smoking a cigarette.
“My name is leading sailman Faye Turney. I come from England. I have served in Foxtrot 99. I’ve been in the navy for nine years,” she said.
Turney was the only person to be shown speaking in the video.
It also showed what appeared to be a handwritten letter from Turney to her family. The letter said, in part, “I have written a letter to the Iranian people to apologize for us entering their waters.” The video also showed a brief scene of what appeared to be the British crew sitting in an Iranian boat in open waters immediately after their capture.
Before the video was broadcast, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said any showing of British personnel on TV would be a breach of the Geneva Conventions.
“It’s completely unacceptable for these pictures to be shown on television,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement after the broadcast. “There is no doubt our personnel were seized in Iraqi territorial waters.” The statement also demanded that British diplomats be given immediate access to them as a “prelude” to their release.
Britain earlier said it was freezing most contacts with Iran until it freed all the crew members.
Britain’s military said its vessels were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when Iran seized the sailors and marines on Friday after they completed a search of a civilian vessel in the Iraqi part of the Shatt al-Arab waterway. The border between Iran and Iraq has been disputed for centuries.
Vice Adm. Charles Style told reporters that the Iranians had provided a position on Sunday – a location that he said was in Iraqi waters. By Tuesday, Iranian officials had given a revised position two miles east, placing the British inside Iranian waters – a claim he said was not verified by global positioning system coordinates.
“It is hard to understand a legitimate reason for this change of coordinates,” Style said.
Style gave the satellite coordinates of the British crew as 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and 048 degrees 43.08 minutes east longitude, and said it had been confirmed by an Indian-flagged merchant ship boarded by the sailors and marines.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki denied this, saying, “That’s not true. It happened in Iranian territorial waters.” Mottaki also told The Associated Press in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that Turney would be released today or Thursday, and he suggested that the British vessels’ alleged entry into Iranian waters may have been a mistake.
“This is a violation that just happened. It could be natural.
They did not resist,” he told the AP.
“Today or tomorrow, the lady will be released,” Mottaki said today on the sidelines of an Arab summit in the Saudi capital, referring to Turney, the only woman among the 15.
The Iranian Embassy in London also said: “We are confident that Iranian and British governments are capable of resolving this security case through their close contacts and cooperation.”
