TEHRAN, Iran – Iran released more video Sunday of the captured British navy crew that shows them playing chess and watching television three days after the sailors returned home after being held in Iran for nearly three weeks.
The video clips, which were briefly aired on Iran's state-run Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Alam, did not include sound but showed several of the sailors and marines dressed in track suits playing chess and table tennis. Other short clips showed some of the crew watching soccer on TV and eating at a long dining table that had vases filled with flowers on it.
It was not immediately clear why Iran aired the video footage, but it comes two days after several of the British crew told reporters that they had been blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters.
They crew members said the eight sailors and seven marines reported undergoing constant psychological pressure and being threatened with seven years in prison if they did not say they intruded into Iranian waters.
Iranian officials have called the crew's comments "propaganda."
The sailors and marines were captured in the Persian Gulf on March 23 and freed last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called their release a gift to Britain. Iran said the British crew was in its waters, but Britain denies the charge.
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