Press Association, 31 March – The arrest of the British service personnel was a pre-planned operation aimed at diverting attention from Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, a political pressure group claimed today.
Senior military leaders had gathered at a base close to where the sailors and marines were detained the night before it took place, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said.
At a press conference in central London, Hossein Abedini said the move was a "meticulously concocted operation".
He said: "You can see that the clerical regime had in a premeditated act arrested British sailors in order to win concessions from the international community and divert attention from its nuclear projects.
"Claims that the sailors were arrested in Iranian territorial waters are baseless."
He added: "Two decades of appeasement towards the mullahs’ regime has emboldened it in its export of terrorism and fundamentalism.
"The lack of a firm policy has turned the practice of hostage taking and blackmail into a profitable business for the mullahs’ regime in its foreign policy."
Mr Abedini said more information has been passed to Downing Street and suggested this may include evidence as to where the hostages are being held.
The NCRI said it obtained its information from within the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, but could not provide any documents or other substantive evidence.