TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest the release from prison of the only surviving member of a group of gunmen who seized the Iranian embassy in London in 1980, media said on Monday.

British newspapers reported on Friday that Fowzi Nejad, 50, would be freed within days after serving 27 years in jail.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari summoned British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams on Sunday in protest at a “condemnable and indefensible” act which raised serious questions about Britain’s sincerity in its ties with Iran, the Tehran Times reported.

The official IRNA news agency said Safari delivered a “strong protest” over the “release of a terrorist,” according to BBC monitoring.

Britain’s embassy was not immediately available for comment.

Six gunmen seized the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980, demanding the release of prisoners in Iran and taking 21 hostages, two of whom they killed. The dramatic six-day siege ended when elite SAS troops stormed the building and rescued 19 hostages, killing five gunmen.

Nejad, the only surviving member of the group, was given a life sentence in 1981 but Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Friday quoted his lawyer as saying the Parole Board had concluded he was no longer a threat to society and had ruled he could be released.Britain’s Times newspaper reported that Iran wants Nejad returned to Tehran to face trial in connection with the 1980 siege but that Britain had blocked his deportation because it had not received assurances that he might not face the death penalty in Iran.—Reuters