AFP - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded Thursday the reported jailing of an embassy worker in Iran as "wholly unjustified" and urged an immediate appeal of the sentence.

British embassy worker Hossein Rassam was sentenced to four years in jail this week after being found guilty of fomenting violence during Iran's disputed presidential elections in June, The Times newspaper said Thursday.

Miliband said reports of the sentence were further harassment of British embassy staff and described it as "deeply concerning."

"Reports that Hossein Rassam has been sentenced to four years in prison are deeply concerning," Miliband said in a statement.

"Such a decision is wholly unjustified and represents further harassment of embassy staff for going about their normal and legitimate duties."

"Our Ambassador in Tehran has spoken to the Deputy Foreign Minister to express our concerns and our acting Permanent Under Secretary has called in the Iranian Ambassador in London," Miliband said.

A Foreign Office spokesman separately declined to confirm the sentence.

Rassam, the British embassy's chief political analyst, was arrested and later put on trial along with an employee of the French embassy, and protesters who challenged the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of people were killed and thousands arrested in the protests, which plunged Iran into its worst internal political crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iran's supreme leader has pointed an accusing finger at the West over the post-election unrest, as well as blaming opposition leaders for the ensuing violence.