Dilemma over freeing surviving terrorist from Iran Embassy siege

Islamic Republic News Agency:

The British government is reportedly in a dilemma over whether to grant asylum to the only terrorist to survive the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London if, as expected, next week's parole board recommends his release from jail. READ MORE

Home Secretary Charles Clarke would then have to decide the fate of Fowzi Nejad, who has so far spent 25 years in a closed prison after receiving five life sentences for conspiracy to murder, false imprisonment, firearm possession and two charges of manslaughter.

Nothing has happened since he won an appeal last year against the Home Secretary's refusal to reduce his life tariff from 25 to 22 years, when three judges called for his case to be given "urgent attention." Nejad was the only one of six terrorists to survive the storming of the Iranian Embassy, after crack SAS troops were reportedly ordered to take no prisoners when the building was burnt down.

Two hostages were killed during the six-day siege in April 1980, which some have linked to the aborted US attempt a few days later to invade Iran that ended in a debacle at Tabas.

Former BBC sound recordist, Sim Harris, one of the hostages who reportedly identified that Nejad was missed by the SAS, says that he should have been put on parole some time ago.

"He is an embarrassment for the Government. They think the easiest thing is to keep him in prison," Harris was quoted saying by PA News Wednesday.

The subsequent trial of Najad, who was claimed to be part of a Democratic Revolutionary Front for Arabistan financed by Saddam Hussein's regime, was dramatically halted within days of starting after he suddenly changed his plea to guilty.