Sailor feared rape, death

2007-04-09 09:05

London - The female British sailor captured and held by Iran said in an interview published on Monday that her captors stripped her to her panties, lied to her and threatened she might never see her baby again.

Meanwhile, the youngest among the 15 Britons held captive by Iran last month told another newspaper that he was blindfolded, threatened, and left in solitary confinement for days.

After the defence ministry relaxed its ban on service personnel striking financial deals with media organisations over the weekend, mother-of-one Faye Turney, 26, told The Sun her interrogators taunted her with threats to her life.

"At one stage ... (the interrogator) asked me, 'How do you feel about dying for your country?" she told the tabloid.

"The next day, another interrogator said to me, 'You don't understand, you must co-operate with us. Do you not want to see your daughter again?"

'Are they going to rape me?'

For the first five days of the 13-day detention, Leading Seaman Turney was also made to believe that the other 14 detainees - all men - had gone home, and she was the only one left.

"I was thrown into a tiny little cell and ordered to strip off," Turney told the newspaper.

"They took everything from me apart from my knickers. Then some cotton pyjamas were thrown in for me to wear and four filthy blankets. The metal door slammed shut again."

In her interview, Turney spoke of how, soon after they were captured in the Gulf by Iranian troops armed with AK-47s and a rocket propelled grenade launcher, Turney mouthed to the group's leader, Captain Chris Air: "Are they going to rape me?"

She also said that at one point she feared Iranian workers were "making my coffin" after she heard "the noise of wood sawing and nails being hammered near my cell ... Then a woman came into my cell to measure me up from head to toe with a tape".

Solitary confinement

Rival tabloid the Daily Mirror carried an interview with 20-year-old Arthur Batchelor, where he said he was also stripped to his underpants, left in solitary confinement for several days ordeal, and an interrogator indicated that if he did not co-operate, he would not see his family.

Following their capture on March 23, Batchelor said: "I was frozen in terror and just stared into the darkness of my blindfold. I could feel the emotion welling up inside me."

He added that he been berated for his youth and diminutive appearance - his captors called him "Mr Bean," after the bumbling television character - and one of his interrogators "indicated I might never see my family again if I didn't go along with what they told me to do".

"He told me, 'If you even survive this, what will you tell your family?"

Newspaper reports on Sunday suggested the 15 captured sailors and marines could make up to £250 000 between them, with Turney standing to net between £100 000 and £150 000, sparking criticism from family members of British personnel and politicians.

- AFP