Fifteen British sailors and Marines were seized by Iran in 2007 in internationally disputed waters and not in Iraq's maritime territory as Parliament was told, according to new official documents released to the British newspaper The Times. It shows that Britain knowingly lied - as Conspiracy Times claimed at the time (see Is capture of 15 British sailors a staged border provocation?).

The Britons were seized because the US-led coalition designated a sea boundary for Iran's territorial waters without telling the Iranians where it was, internal Ministry of Defence briefing papers reveal.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act detail for the first time the blunders last spring that led to what an all-party committee of MPs came to describe as a "national embarrassment". The captured 14 men and one woman were paraded on Iranian TV for a fortnight before being freed by a smiling President Ahmadinejad, who gave them new suits and bags of presents.

Newly released Ministry of Defence documents state that:
- The arrests took place in waters that are not internationally agreed as Iraqi;
- The coalition unilaterally designated a dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters in the Gulf without telling Iran where it was;
- The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' coastal protection vessels were crossing this invisible line at a rate of three times a week;
- It was the British who apparently raised their weapons first before the Iranian gunboats came alongside;
- The cornered British, surrounded by heavily armed Iranians, made a hopeless last-minute radio plea for a helicopter to come back and provide air cover.

Iran always claimed that it had arrested the Britons for violating its territorial integrity. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, repeatedly told the Commons that the personnel were seized in Iraqi waters. The MoD, in a televised briefing by Vice-Admiral Charles Style, the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, produced a map showing a line in the sea called "Iraq/Iran Territorial Water Boundary". A location was given for the capture of the Britons inside what the chart said were "Iraq territorial waters". But the newly released top-level internal briefing accepts that no such border exists.

At the time, the British government claimed otherwise. Des Browne, Defence Secretary, addressed the House of Commons on June 16, 2007, stating: "There is no doubt that HMS Cornwall was operating in Iraqi waters and that the incident itself took place in Iraqi waters... In the early days the Iranians provided us with a set of co-ordinates, and asserted that was where the event took place, but when we told them the co-ordinates were in Iraqi waters they changed that set and found one in their own waters. I do not think that even they sustain the position that the incident took place anywhere other than in Iraqi waters." An MoD report to the chief of the Defence Staff read: "Since the outset of the Iraq-Iran War there has been no formal ratified TTW [territorial waters] agreement in force between Iraq and Iran ... In the absence of any formal agreement, the coalition tactical demarcation (the Op Line) is used as a notional TTW boundary. It is a US NAVCENT [US Naval Forces Central Command] construct based on an extension of the Algiers accord demarcation line beyond the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab [waterway] into the NAG [northern Arabian GulfJ. While it may be assumed that the Iranians must be aware of some form of operational boundary, the exact co-ordinates to the Op Line have not been published to Iran."

The report, addressed to Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, blames the incident on the absence of an agreed boundary and a failure to co-ordinate between Iraq, Iran and the coalition. Under the heading "Why the incident occurred", the report examines the history of a border that has been disputed since a treaty between the Persian and Ottoman empires in 1639.

Professor Robert Springborg, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, said that it was negligent to fail to clarify with the Iranians where the notional boundary was – which may be an understatement.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, The Times made requests about the events. The MoD released two documents, although parts are censored. One is the report to Sir Jock dated April 13, 2007, a week after the Britons returned home unharmed. It was compiled after they had been debriefed. The other is the communications log between the mother ship HMS Cornwall and the two seaboats used by the boarding party.

The terrifying minutes when 14 British servicemen and a woman found themselves surrounded by heavily armed Iranians at sea were also divulged. A plaintive radio call for a helicopter to save them was made to the mother ship HMS Cornwall moments before the sailors and Marines were seized by Revolutionary Guards. A wireless transcript was released by the Ministry of Defence after a request by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, although some of the transcript was replaced by the word "redacted".
At 8.43am local time, as a suspicious merchant vessel was boarded by the British, the inspection party sent the message: "That's Blue Team embarking". At 9.04am comes the first sign of trouble. The crew say: "We have cowboys rpt cowboys beside us".
A minute later, they plead for air cover: "Can we have helo over ASAP?" HMS Cornwall replies: "Can you let us know what they are doing? Are they in Iraqi territorial waters?" The reply comes: "Yes".
A newly released MoD report to the Chief of the Defence Staff states that on March 23, 2007, the boarding team in two RIBs (ribbed inflatable boats) set out to board a vessel accompanied by a Lynx helicopter. "En route to the [redacted] the Lynx overflew the MV Hanin and reported that they had identified a potentially illegal cargo of motor cars aboard the MV Hanin. A decision was made to redirect the boarding to this vessel which was located outside the Buffer Zone 1.5 [nautical miles] from the Op Line".

Precisely what happened next remains secret. A passage of the report is missing, replaced with "redacted".
It seems that the British may have raised their weapons first. The coalition had carried out 66 boardings in four weeks so it is unclear if this might have been seen as a provocative act.
The narrative resumes: "The crew of the MV Hanin became agitated and the captain told the boarding party that he did not want them to leave as he was fearful of Iranian reprisals.
"At this point OCRM [the senior Royal Marine] ordered all his personnel to make their weapons ready and for the [RIBs] to come alongside to extract the teams.
"As the party was descending the ladders, two Iranian gunboats came alongside and blocked in the RIBs. [Redacted] The initial posture of the Iranian personnel was friendly and the IRGCN [Revolutionary Guards Navy] Captain shook hands with OCRM and told him he was in Iranian waters, which OCRM refuted.
"The Iranians then adopted an aggressive stance, bringing their weapons to bear and physically blocking in the [RIBs]. Due to the speed of change in posture and the overwhelming firepower available to the IRGCN, the boarding team took the decision to lower their own weapons in order to try and de-escalate the situation.
"The [RIBs] were then piloted by IRGCN personnel including a cameraman who videoed the events".

For nearly a fortnight Iranian TV showed the team. Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman, was filmed smoking and wearing a hijab. The MoD let the detainees sell their stories. Arthur Batchelor became a laughing stock after telling the Daily Mirror that he sobbed himself to sleep when guards confiscated his iPod and called him Mr Bean.