Scots MEP accuses Iran over Mideast uprisings

An INFLUENTIAL MEP on Middle East affairs has compared Iran to the Nazis and claimed Pakistan's only Christian minister was assassinated because the country's "biased" government failed to protect him.

Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, president of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Iraq, said Iran was "manipulating" the uprisings in the Middle East to impose a nuclear-armed "Shia hegemony".

He also revealed that his own investigations had shown Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the Pakistan government, who was assassinated two weeks ago for fighting to overturn anti-blasphemy laws, was the only minister not given an armoured car or a security guard around his home.

He said: "Now that smacks to me of a singular bias, perhaps because he was a Christian minister. I've asked for clarification from the ambassador about those issues."

Mr Stevenson returned from Washington ten days ago following meetings with the US State Department about the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

He said the UK's response had left the Obama administration trailing behind.

"There was nothing coming out of Washington at all," he said. "Congressmen were all saying to me: 'We want to know what the Obama administration intends to do'."