Blair ... Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way doesn't fool anyone.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP):

Iran yesterday broadcast TV footage of a captured British marine apologising for entering Iranian waters "without permission" - a move that drew indignation from Prime Minister Tony Blair who said Tehran's manipulation of the detainee "doesn't fool anyone".

The serviceman, Royal Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers, was shown sitting with another serviceman and the female British sailor Faye Turney against a pink floral curtain. Both men wore camouflage fatigues with a label saying 'Royal Navy' on their chests and a small British flag stitched to their left sleeves. Turney wore a blue jumpsuit and a black headscarf.

The three were among 15 British sailors and marines detained by naval units of the Revolutionary Guards on March 23, while patrolling near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway for smugglers.

"We trespassed without permission," Summers said, adding he knew that Iran had seized British military personnel who strayed into their waters three years ago.

"This happened back in 2004 and our government said that it wouldn't happen again," Summers said on the Arabic-language channel Al-Alam. "And, again, I deeply apologise for entering your waters."

Blair said he could not understand why Iran had aired the clip, the second broadcast of the detained British sailors and marines in three days.

Enhances sense of disgust

"I really don't know why the Iranian regime keep doing this. I mean all it does is enhance people's sense of disgust. Captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way doesn't fool anyone," Blair said.

"What the Iranians have to realise is that if they continue in this way, they will face increasing isolation," he added.

It was not known whether the marine spoke under pressure from his captors, but Summers said in the broadcast "our treatment has been very friendly".

Meanwhile, Iran released a third letter supposedly from Turney, the only woman in the crew, in which she says she has been "sacrificed" by Britain.

The first two letters attributed to Turney, released on Wednesday and Thursday, said she was sorry for straying into Iranian waters and asked if it wasn't time for Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. The first letter was wooden; the second and third had language that was even more stilted.

"I am writing to you as a British serviceperson who has been sent to Iraq, sacrificed due to the intervening policies of the Bush and Blair governments," the Friday letter said.

Britain has demanded the sailors' release, insisting that they were in Iraqi waters at the time they were intercepted. But Iran has urged that Britain acknowledge that its sailors had violated Iranian waters.