Canada Complicates Kazemi Case: Iran 

Agencies, Arab News

TEHRAN, 11 April 2005 — Iran yesterday accused Canada of complicating matters in the case of an Iranian-Canadian photographer who died in detention in Tehran, after Ottawa asked to conduct its own autopsy on her body. “Canada has adopted a bad approach since the beginning and has complicated things even more,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

The declaration came after Ottawa demanded that the remains of Zahra Kazemi, who died in custody in July 2003, be handed over following allegations from an exiled Iranian doctor that she had been raped before dying. “They should have first accepted the fact that Zahra Kazemi was an Iranian citizen,” Asefi added. Iran does not recognize dual nationality and therefore feels it is not obliged to hand over the body.

Asefi said Ottawa’s requests for another autopsy and for an independent enquiry would “have to be examined by the judiciary which will decide whether to accept them”.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi who represents Kazemi’s mother, has asked the head of judiciary to “appoint a special examining judge to discover the truth in Kazemi’s death”, the state news agency IRNA reported yesterday. “The lower and appeal courts have not been legally competent to examine the Kazemi case,” Ebadi said .

The Nobel winner and human rights lawyer asked that the special judge be independent of Tehran judiciary, who had Kazemi arrested and whose role was questioned in the photographer’s death.