Freed sailors retract TV confessions

Royal Marine Base Chivenor, England: The British sailors and Marines held captive by Tehran for nearly two weeks faced constant psychological pressure and the threat of up to seven years in prison if they did not say they strayed into Iranian waters, a navy lieutenant said yesterday.

Lieutenant Felix Carman, safely home with his 14 colleagues, told a news conference the crew had faced harsh interrogation by their Iranian captors and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets.

"All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options. If we admitted that we'd strayed, we'd be on a plane [to Britain] pretty soon," Carman said.

"If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison." Royal Marine Captain Chris Air said the crew, which was out on a routine operation on March 23, was confronted by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

"They rammed our boats and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs, and weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us," Air said.

Consequences

"We realised that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have major strategic impacts. We made a conscious decision not to engage the Iranians."

While much of the country rallied behind the returning crew, others criticised them for offering apologies where none was required - specifically for appearing in videos in which they appeared to admit entering Iranian waters and offered regrets.

Carman had been pictured on Iranian television apologising for straying into Iranian waters. At yesterday's news conference, he said the capture of the crew was "a stunt for Iranian propaganda".

Reversal

"Let me make this clear - irrespective of what was said in the past - when we were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard we were inside internationally recognised Iraqi territorial waters," he said.

The most visible of the seized sailors and Marines during their captivity was Leading Seaman Faye Turney, a 26-year-old mother of one. Letters to her family received widespread publicity in Britain, particularly one in which she requested the British government to withdraw from Iraq.

Air said she was singled out for propaganda purposes, held in solitary confinement and told the others had gone home.

The head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Jonathon Band, said the crew had "acted with considerable dignity and a lot of courage".

Hostage code: Troops provided with specialist training

Most British military personnel are given training on being captured, but only special operations troops and pilots receive specialised training on what to do if taken hostage, the ministry said.

Although experts said the broadcast admissions were almost surely made under duress, many British newspapers lashed out at the crew and the country's military for giving out more than "name, rank and number." Some critics said American troops would have behaved differently.

- AP