Iran's Guardian Council endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's victory in the June 12 election, saying that a recount of 10 percent of ballots, sampled randomly, had revealed no irregularities.

The defeated reformist candidate, Mirhossein Mousavi, had rejected the Council's offer of a partial vote recount in advance. Moussavi and his supporters say the presidential election was rigged and want it annulled.

Together with two other defeated presidential candidates, Moussavi submitted a total of 646 complaints about the election.

The Council dismissed all objections.

"The majority of the objections were not deemed infringements or fraud and were only minor irregularities that occur in each election and are therefore not significant and the objections not warranted," said the head of the Guardians Council Ayatollah Ahmad Janati in a letter to the Interior Ministry, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

According to the official results, Ahmadinejad won the election with 63 percent of ballots compared to just 34 percent for Mousavi, a gap of 11 million votes.

The official outcome has sparked the biggest protests in Iran since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. At least 20 people have died in clashes with the authorities.

AFP reports that hundreds of policemen and Basij militiamen are patrolling public squares in the streets of the capital Tehran to prevent a recurrence of protests in the wake of the Guardian Council's ruling.

Meanwhile, Iran says it has released five British embassy staff, who were arrested at the weekend and accused of encouraging the demonstrations.

Britain says nine local staffers were arrested in all. Britain and the European Union have called for all the staffers to be released, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has condemned their arrests.

"We find that the harassment of embassy staff is deplorable, and we will continue to support the United Kingdom in calling for their release," Clinton told reporters.

nw/Reuters/AFP/AP
Editor: Michael Lawton