By Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top legislative body confirmed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in a disputed election after a partial recount on Monday, official media reported.
Ahead of the widely expected confirmation, riot police were deployed in main thoroughfares and squares of the capital Tehran where protests had erupted after Ahmadinejad was first declared the clear victor in the June 12 vote, witnesses said.
"The secretary of the Guardian Council in a letter to the Interior Minister announced the final decision of the Council ... and declares the approval of the accuracy of the results of ... the presidential election," state broadcaster IRIB said.
State media say 20 people died in post-election violence, the worst unrest since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah and established the Islamic Republic.
The Council agreed to recount a random 10 percent of the votes after the protests, which exposed rifts in the clerical leadership and were broken up by pro-government Basij militia and riot police.
Opposition supporters say the vote was rigged to favour the hardline president over reformist rivals including Mirhossein Mousavi, who came second. The government and Mousavi each blamed the other for the violence that followed.
Mousavi had rejected the idea of a recount, saying the vote should be completely annulled. Pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, fourth in the official count, also said annulment was "the only way to regain the people's trust."
The street protests have strained relations with the West and in particular Britain, which has rejected accusations that its embassy encouraged the opposition. Iran had detained nine local embassy staff but freed five of them on Monday.
Speaking before the Guardian Council announcement, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the Group of Eight wealthy powers were likely to agree to adopt fresh sanctions on Iran when they meet in Italy next week, though he gave no details.
In a sign earlier in the day that the recount would not question Ahmadinejad's victory, IRNA news agency said recounting in one Tehran district gave him more votes than in the initial count.
RIOT POLICE DEPLOYED
Witnesses reported an increased police presence in some Tehran squares ahead of the announcement. One saw dozens of riot police vehicles driving towards southern Tehran.
A witness said riot police were out in force on a northern section of tree-lined Vali-ye Asr, Tehran's most famous boulevard. Relatively prosperous northern Tehran is a stronghold of Mousavi supporters.
Mobile phone networks were unusable in the early evening.
Reporting from different locations where recounting took place across the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, Iranian news agencies said representatives of Mousavi and Karoubi were not present even though they had been invited.
In the northern city of Babolsar, the semi-official Fars News Agency said recounting did not change the result for any candidate. The methodology of the recount was not immediately clear.
Iran's hardline rulers, locked in a row with the West over nuclear ambitions, have blamed the trouble on foreign powers rather than popular anger.
They said they were keeping four British embassy staff for questioning after releasing the other five detainees. London said Tehran's actions were unacceptable.
"Iran's action, first the expulsion of two diplomats and now the arrest of a number of our locally engaged staff, is unacceptable, unjustified and without foundation and we with our international partners will continue to make this clear," Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters in London.
The European Union said it stood by London.
Ahmadinejad called for a judicial inquiry into what he called the "suspicious" shooting to death of music student Neda Agha-Soltan, who became a symbol of opposition protests after her death was broadcast on the Internet.
(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi in Tehran, Kate Kelland in London and Gavin Jones in Rome; Writing by Richard Meares; Editing by Charles Dick)
