Iran probes attack on British embassy

Iranian legal authorities have launched investigations against "several" people who stormed the British embassy in Tehran last month, Tehran's chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said Tuesday. The suspects were free on bail pending the outcome of the inquiry, he said, according to the state news agency IRNA. "The case is being investigated and a legal inquiry has been launched," Dolatabadi was quoted as saying. Hundreds of pro-regime supporters described as student members of Iran's Basij militia stormed the British embassy and another British diplomatic compound in Tehran on November 29. The assault prompted Britain to close its embassy and order Iran's embassy in London shut. British officials accuse Iran's regime of having orchestrated or permitted the attack, which was roundly condemned by the UN Security Council and several countries, including Iranian allies Russia and China. Iranian government officials, especially in the foreign ministry, have sought in recent days to present the embassy assault as an unplanned and unforseeable incident carried out by students acting on their own. An unspecified number of protesters were said to be arrested after the storming of the embassy, but then released. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday told the Mehr news agency "we regret what happened," but said Britain had overreacted. A spokesman for the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission last week said "some opportunist people" had broken international rules by entering the embassy. But he also attributed some of the blame to what he said was Britain's inadequate security precautions at the embassy.