Plot against Iranian government

Last Modified: 18 Jul 2007
By: Channel 4 News

Two Iranian-Americans have appeared on Iranian television confessing that they came back to the country to try to bring down the government.

There has been concern in the United States since the two, along with two other US citizens, were arrested earlier this year.

Meanwhile, an Iranian woman has been given a last-minute reprieve from deportation amid a mounting campaign to prove she will be stoned to death if sent back home.

Samar converted to Christianity to escape an arranged marriage before leaving Iran for the UK around three years ago.

She claims a document from the Islamic Revolutionary Court is a death sentence stating she will be stoned to death for changing her faith if she returns to Iran.

Her application for asylum was refused and she was due to be deported on Friday, July 13.

But last minute talks by Tory MP Tobias Ellwood with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Home Office resulted in a Stay of Departure less than three hours before she was due to board a plane from Heathrow to Tehran.

The Home Office then rejected her case to appeal the decision and she was due to be deported this evening.

A mounting campaign involving MPs, Christian worshippers and The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, has succeeded in securing her a second Stay of Departure while the Home Office investigates fresh evidence.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to look in to her case after Tory MP and former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe raised Samar's predicament in Parliament yesterday.

The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has also asked Mr Ellwood to send details of her case to Geneva.