The 15 British marines and sailors who were released by Iran on Thursday said today that they were threatened and subjected to psychological pressure before giving videotaped statements appearing to apologize for trespassing in Iranian waters.
Some of the former captives said today at a news conference that they knew they were really in Iraqi waters when they were seized, and that they had no choice but to surrender quickly when surrounded by Iranian boats. They denied having ever given the Iranians genuine confessions that they had entered Iranian waters.
Once in detention, they said, they were stripped and blindfolded, isolated from one another and interrogated. On one occasion, they were blindfolded and lined up facing a wall, and could hear guns being cocked behind them.
“Some of us feared the worst,” said Capt. Chris Air of the Royal Marines.
The captives were kept separately in small stone cells where they slept on piles of blankets, they said. Iranian interrogators told then that if they confessed to being in Iranian waters, they would be returned to Britain, but if they did not, they would be imprisoned for seven years.
Even so, they said, they qualified their statements to the Iranians to make clear that any assessment that they had been Iranian waters was based on information provided by the Iranians themselves.
Lt. Felix Carman of the Royal Navy said that when the group was first detained on March 23, the captives were taken to a location and interrogated aggressively through the night. “The handling was rough, but no worse than that,” he said.
Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman among the detainees, was held separately from the men and was told that the men had all been released, Captain Air said today. “For four days, she thought she was the only one there,” he said.
The news conference demonstrated the speed with which the British military wanted to counter the impression of the entire incident that has been left by the Iranian government.
Seized while conducting a routine operation near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, which forms part of the border between Iran and Iraq, over nearly two weeks in Iranian hands the captives were repeatedly displayed on state television, sometimes looking relaxed and smiling. In several cases, they were heard admitting that they had trespassed in Iranian waters and apologizing.
On Wednesday, the day before they were released, they lined up for handshakes and small talk with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Television images of the event showed the detainees sipping cups of tea, accepting bags of gifts and answering questions from Iranian journalists about matters like whether the Iranian countryside reminded them of Wales. Several appeared to go out of their way to thank the Iranians for releasing them.
“The treatment has been great,” Ms. Turney was heard to say on Iranian television. “Thank you for letting us go. We apologize for our actions.”
But today, a group of the former captives explained at the news conference that they had spent most of their 13 days in detention in separate cells, and were not allowed to see or speak to one another until nearly the end of the ordeal, and then only while being watched by Iranian journalists.
Finally, when the captives were dressed in civilian clothes and allowed to watch Mr. Ahmadinejad announce they would be released, “there was a great deal of elation,” said Lieutenant Carman.
The captives were then lined up to meet the president, and afterward were blindfolded again and taken to a hotel.
Captain Air said today that on the day they were captured, two Iranian boats blocked them in and rammed their boats, and the Iranian crews were aggressive and seemed unstable. Another six boats quickly closed in. Captain Air said he could not calm the Iranians down, and judged that if his crew tried to resist they would both lose the fight and cause a major international incident.
“They had come with a clear purpose, and they were never going to leave without us,” Captain Air said. “I believe we made the right decision.”
On Thursday, once the captives were released and were safely in the air on the way home, Prime Minister Tony Bair set aside the careful, diplomatic language he had used during the crisis and spoke in tough, almost antagonistic, terms about possible links between the Iranian government and terrorism in Iraq.
For their meeting with President Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, the captives were shown on television wearing civilian outfits issued by the Iranian government — ill-fitting grey three-piece suits and white shirts for the men, not unlike the attire the president himself often wears, and a headscarf, striped shirt and trousers for Ms. Turney. But when they arrived at Heathrow Airport outside London on Thursday, the eight sailors and seven marines were dressed once more in military clothing sent from Britain.
They boarded two naval helicopters to fly to their base in Devon for debriefings and medical and psychological checkups.
Mr. Blair reiterated on Thursday that Britain had traded nothing in return for the detainees’ freedom. They were released, he said, “without any deal, without any negotiation, without any side agreement of any nature whatsoever.”
Britain maintained throughout that the sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters on United Nations-mandated business when they were seized. Iran contended that they had trespassed in Iranian waters and demanded that Britain apologize and never do it again — an apology Britain does not appear to have made, at least publicly.
Speaking on BBC radio, Mike Dewar, a retired army colonel who is now an expert on security issues, said that the sailors and marines had not had appropriate protection and that their capture could have been thwarted by, for instance, the presence of helicopter gunships overhead.
