Tehran | July 24
AFP – An Iranian intelligence agent who stood trial for the killing in custody of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi has been found not guilty due to a “lack of proof” and the investigation has been closed, the official news agency IRNA reported Saturday, quoting a source in the hardline judiciary.
Details after the jump
TEHRAN, July 24 (AFP) – An Iranian court has cleared an intelligence agent accused of killing Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi while she was in custody, and the hardline judiciary has moved to close the case, the official news agency IRNA reported Saturday.
The report quoted an official in the prosecution office as saying the agent,
Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, had been cleared due to a “lack of proof”.
IRNA said that in the absence of a guilty verdict, the Iranian government had been ordered to pay “blood money” to Kazemi’s family, and appeared to signal the courts would not be pursuing the case any further — a decision likely to further damage relations with Canada.
“If killer or killers could not be found, the diyeh (blood money) will be paid by the treasury,” said the official, who was not named.
In Iran, blood money for a woman — half that for a man — amounts to 80 million rials, or around 9,200 dollars.
Kazemi’s family, however, can appeal against the verdict, although it is not clear if that would result in another investigation to find the real killer.
Kazemi, a 54-year-old freelance photographer with dual nationality, died in July 2003 from a brain haemorrhage, the result of a blow to her skull inflicted while she was being interrogated.
She had been arrested for taking photos outside Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, at the time packed with protestors who took part in last summer’s wave of anti-regime demonstrations.
During his trial, the 42-year-old intelligence agent claimed he was a scapegoat and victim of Iran’s complex internal rivalries. During two days of hearings last week, the judiciary was accused of covering up for one of its own officials.
The judiciary initially claimed Kazemi died of a stroke, but a government report later revealed she had been struck by a blunt object while being interrogated.
Between her arrest and her admission to hospital, she spent several days being shuttled between the custody of judicial prosecutors, the police and the intelligence ministry.
A team of lawyers led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who were representing Kazemi’s enraged family, alleged in court that the real killer could have been Mohammad Bakhshi, a senior justice official working in Evin prison.
The intelligence ministry is seen as being closer to President Mohammad Khatami’s reformist government after it underwent a major shake-up in 2000. In contrast, the judiciary is a powerful bastion of the religious right-wing and has often targeted reformists.
And in a controversial move, on the second day of hearing last week, the judicary barred foreign diplomats — including Canada’s ambassador to Tehran Philip MacKinnon — and foreign reporters from observing the trial. In response, Canada recalled it ambassador.
He had already been called home over the affair last year after Kazemi’s body was hastily buried at her birthplace in the south of Iran in a ceremony her mother said had been organised under duress in order to deny Canada the opportunity to carry out its own autopsy.
Iran, which refuses to recognise dual nationality, said Canada had no business observing the trial and said Kazemi’s case was a “domestic affair”.
The trial is seen as a key test of Iran’s willingness to tackle what human rights groups allege is the widespread use of torture in its prison system.
Ebadi, a human rights lawyer, warned after the trial that if justice was not served in Iran she could take the case to an international tribunal.
background
Canada recalls ambassador to Iran
http://scoop.agonist.org/?op=search&offset=0&old_count=30&type=story§ion=&st
ring=Kazemi&phrase=true&count=30&orderby=date
Toronto Star
Zahra Kazemi, a photographer based in Montreal, died after being detained in Iran.
Man acquitted in Kazemi slaying
Jul. 24, 2004.
TEHRAN, Iran — (CP-AP) An Iranian court has acquitted the man charged in the murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, a case which has severely threatened diplomatic ties between Canada and Iran, the chief defence lawyer said Saturday.
Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led the four-member legal team, said the court was not competent and the legal proceedings were flawed.
“I’m required to work until my last breath to make sure that justice is done to my client,” Ebadi said.
She threatened to take the matter to international organizations if the Iranian judiciary fails to carry out justice in Kazemi’s murder.
“I’ll protest this verdict. If the appeals court and other legal stages fail to heed our objections, we will use all domestic and international facilities to meet the legal rights of my client,” an angry Ebadi said.
The Iranian court also said it would pay the family compensation for her death, funds Kazemi’s son’s lawyer called “blood money,” an insult they would reject.
John Terry also said the verdict was disappointing but not a shock to his client.
“I can’t say we are surprised with this decision,” he said. “The only justice we’ve come to expect out of Iran in the last year in dealing with this is no justice,” he said from Toronto.
“If the Iranians intend to bury this matter through this acquittal, the only option in our view, is to take the Iranians to an international forum and that forum is the International Court of Justice.”
The intelligence agent charged with killing Kazemi, counterespionage expert Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, pleaded not guilty during trial. He was the only person implicated by the judiciary in what is called Kazemi’s “semi-premeditated murder.”
Kazemi, a Montreal-based Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died July 10, 2003, while in detention for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the government.
Iranian authorities initially said Kazemi died of a stroke but a presidential committee later found that she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head.
After the court initially barred foreign observers last week, several, including Canadian Ambassador Philip MacKinnon and other diplomats, were allowed to attended the session.
But last Sunday they were blocked from entering the courtroom and the trial was abruptly ended, prompting Ebadi and her team to walk out of the court building in protest.
Ebadi accused the court Saturday of deliberately failing to carry out justice.
“If the court had summoned the people we named during the trial for explanation, it could have accurately identified the people who committed the murder,” she said.
Ebadi said the court ruled that Iran would give compensation to Kazemi’s family.
The average compensation now paid to relatives of a Muslim man killed is about $18,750 US ($24,800 Cdn). The payment is about half that if the victim was Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian or a woman, regardless of her religion.
Terry, the lawyer for Kazemi’s son, Stephan Hachemi, 26, said the family would reject any financial compensation.
“The family has reiterated that it will not be accept any blood money,” Terry said. “(The family) views the whole provision of blood money here and the amount of it as a humiliating and insulting gesture.
“Clearly (the compensation ruling) is grossly out of proportion not only to international standards of what would be appropriate compensation but the pain and suffering this family has endured (and) the unconscionable way that this crime occurred.”
Terry also said the verdict did not address the repatriation of Kazemi’s body.
“Our lawyers in Iran have requested the body be exhumed for examination as is required under Iranian law. The verdict does not address this and is another indication the court decision is an attempt to bury the case.”
Terry said he and Hachemi will speak to their Iranian lawyers and Canadian officials before deciding how to proceed.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Andre Lemay said the department can’t comment because it doesn’t have information on the reasons for acquittal since Canadian observers were excluded from the court and received no official information.
“We don’t understand the reasons for the acquittal. Lack of proof? Is this a mistrial? Are they going to set a new trial next week, in a month’s time? We don’t have any of those details. We’re scrambling to find out as much as we can.”
Ebadi’s team had angered hardliners by accusing prison official Mohammad Bakhshi of inflicting the fatal blow to Kazemi and the conservative judiciary of illegally detaining her.
Ebadi refused to sign the bill of indictment – which implicated Ahmadi and cleared Bakhshi of any wrongdoing – and demanded that the court summon several top officials, including hardline Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, to explain Kazemi’s murder.
Ebadi said filing a case against Bakhshi still remained an option before she would turn to international organizations.
Abdolfattah Soltani, who is on Ebadi’s team, said he didn’t understand why the judiciary would not punish those responsible for the crime.
“Simply I can’t understand why the judiciary is trying to hide the truth and not punish those who committed the crime. It’s not comprehensible why Iran should be discredited in the world for a few people who committed murder,” he said.
Soltani has said Mortazavi could be a possible suspect in the case.
The Canadian government has blamed Mortazavi for the death, and Iranian reformists have accused him of a coverup.
Last week, journalists complained that Mortazavi had told them not to report on parts of the trial. Most Iranian newspapers have not published the accusations against Bakhshi and the prosecution, apparently fearing retribution.
Iranian-Canadian relations, soured by the slaying and subsequent burial in Iran against the wishes of Kazemi’s son in Montreal, further deteriorated after Iran rejected the idea of Canadian observers attending the trial. Relations were further strained when MacKinnon was not allowed to attend the last session of the open trial last Sunday.
NYT 7/26
Iran Acquittal in Death Case Is Challenged
By NAZILA FATHI in Tehran
The lawyer representing the family of a slain Iranian-Canadian photojournalist vowed to continue the struggle to bring the killer to justice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/26/international/middleeast/26iran.html
11 January 2005 — Reports say that the case of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died while in custody, has been sent to Iran’s revision court.
Iran’s ILNA news agency today quoted Mohammad Sayfzadeh, a lawyer representing Kazemi’s family, as saying the court hearing could possibly be held on 13 February.
Kazemi died of a brain hemorrhage in detention after being arrested more than a year ago for taking photos of a Tehran prison.
According to official investigations, she was struck on the head during interrogation.
Last month, Canada recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest Tehran’s handling of the case. Canada has since appointed a new ambassador to the post.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/01/e6f32163-7ad4-478f-801b-f8d8092e4da6.html