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  Date / Time: 6/30/2009 3:38 AM UTC

  Clinton questions Iran election recount
  

  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday questioned the utility of the partial recount by Iran's election oversight body. Earlier today, the Guardian Council certified the results of the disputed 12 June presidential election, after completing a random recount of 10 percent of the ballots. The body confirmed the previously declared landslide victory for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "They have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process. And I don’t think that’s going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively small number of votes," Clinton told reporters in Washington on Monday, according to the Associated Press. Asked if Washington would recognize Ahmadinejad as Iran’s legitimate president, Clinton replied: “We’re going to take this a day at a time.”
  Defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have said that the election was marred by “fraud” and have called for a new election. Guardian Council Secretary Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said that the recount had shown “no irregularities”, the state-run Press TV network reports. Meanwhile, Clinton also decried Iran’s “deplorable” treatment of British embassy staff arrested yesterday on accusations of stoking post-election unrest.
  “We find that the harassment of embassy staff is deplorable and we will continue to support the (United Kingdom) in calling for their release,” she said, according to AFP.
  
  
  Britain confirmed today that five of the nine staff arrested yesterday had been released, but demanded the release of the four remaining staff members.
  
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  • ELECTION FRAUD ALL O
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