The World - News from Feb. 21, 1986

Britain has blocked Iran’s appointment of a former student leader of the radicals who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran as its top diplomat in London, sources in the British capital reported. They said Iran is furious at Britain’s refusal to extend a visa to Hussein Malaek, a senior official at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The Tehran government had chosen him as charge d’affaires in London. Iranian sources said that Malaek was prominent among the Islamic students who led the takeover of the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans captive for 444 days.