Iran released on bail a senior member of the British Embassy’s local staff last night, easing tensions with London which the hardline regime in Tehran has attempted to use as a scapegoat for the worst crisis in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history.

Hossein Rassam, 44, was among a group of nine local embassy staff arrested on June 27 after huge pro-democracy demonstrations followed disputed presidential elections 15 days earlier.

The other eight were released within days but Mr Rassam, a political analyst, remained in Evin prison, in Tehran, on charges of inciting unrest.

“He is fine and seems not to be having any problem,” said his lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, adding that bail of 1 billion rials (£61,600) had been paid. Mr Rassam is to be tried at an unspecified date, apparently for action against Iran’s national security, his lawyer said.

David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, welcomed the release of Mr Rassam and reiterated that the detention of the embassy staff was “completely unjustified.”

The June 12 vote reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline incumbent, for a second four-year term but millions of Iranians believe the election was rigged and that the real winner was his main reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister.

Hardliners forced out Mr Ahmadinejad’s nominee as vice-president yesterday despite his being a member of the President’s family. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie’s departure came four days after he was appointed. Mr Mashaie, whose daughter is married to President Ahmadinejad’s son, had outraged clerics and politicians after saying that the Islamic Republic was a “friend of the Israeli people”. The resignation was announced by Press TV, Iran’s state-run English-language television station.

Last week another vice-president, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, who headed Iran’s nuclear programme, also resigned. Mr Mashaie attracted conservatives’ disapproval by allegedly watching unveiled women dancing at a tourism exhibition in Turkey two years ago.

The President had shown a “twisted face to clerics and elites” by appointing Mr Mashaie, said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hardline Ahmadinejad ally. “Ahmadinejad should not challenge conservatives with such decisions. I request the President to replace him before more criticisms are made,” he said.

Mr Ahmadinejad would have struggled to get his ministerial choices past parliament. Mr Mashaie’s departure could make that task easier. President Ahmadinejad still faces obstacles, however. Two thirds of the 290-seat assembly snubbed the president’s re-election “victory” party last month.

“Ahmadinejad’s appointment of Mashaie . . . brought shock, regret and concern to his voters,” said Hossein Shariatmadari, the highly influential editor of the conservative Kayhan newspaper. The hardline daily is the mouthpiece of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blessed the President’s disputed re-election last month as “divine”.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s robust championing of Mr Mashaie was surprising given his lurid anti-Israeli rhetoric, which has heightened Western suspicions of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme. The President has often predicted the demise of the Jewish state, describing it as a “stinking corpse” and calling for Israel to be re-located to Europe, Canada or Alaska.

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