Iran: US accusation lacks legal rationale

The Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed the US accusations that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, stressing that the claims had no "legal rationale."The ministry said in a statement that the Iranian government has no connection to Manssor Arbabsiar, the man arrested in the alleged plot. The statement further derided the claims, saying that US officials have put forward no proof. "Unilaterally announcing accusations without showing documentation and creating a media wave against Iran is in no way compatible with legal logic, and can only be a purely media and political show," it said. It said the accusations were "put together based on statements, guesses and suppositions by individuals involved in drug smuggling" and would never stand up in an "appropriate, impartial courtroom". Two men were charged in New York federal court on Tuesday in the alleged plot. Arbabsiar is a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen. In May 2011, the criminal complaint says, he approached someone he believed to be a member of the vicious Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, for help with an attack on the Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir. The man he approached turned out to be an informant for US drug agents, it says. The government charges that Arbabsiar had been told by his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai to recruit a drug trafficker.