TEHRAN: The trial of protesters accused of ransacking the Saudi Embassy opened on Monday in the Iranian capital with 21 suspects accused of destruction, the judiciary’s news agency reported. A news agency said that 21 out of 48 defendants appeared in court for the first hearing and were formally informed by the prosecutor of the charges against them. “They are accused of destruction and disrupting public order”, it said. The Saudi embassy and its consulate in Iran’s second city Mashhad were stormed and burned on January 2, in a protest against the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent cleric from Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority. Saudi Arabia and some of its Gulf allies severed diplomatic relations with Iran the next day, following the destruction of its embassy. Iran hopes that the trial will re-establish international confidence. “Every country is responsible for the security of its foreign embassies,” President Hassan Rouhani said in June. “People want to know how a bunch of rogue individuals, who attacked a foreign embassy in breach of the law and against the country’s public security, will be dealt with by the judiciary,” he said. The trial would continue but the next hearing’s date has not been told. The embassy attack was condemned by Iran’s top authorities, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Local news agencies said that some of the 21 accused, who appeared in court along with their lawyers, presented their defence during the first hearing – the agency did not elaborate. In April, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie said that 48 people would face trial over the attacks but it was not immediately clear why only 21 appeared in court on Monday. Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a fierce competition for regional influence, backing opposing sides in conflicts such as Syria and Yemen.