TEHRAN, 24 July 2003 — Iranian President Mohammad Khatami yesterday called for an independent probe into the death in custody of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, after the judiciary shrugged off responsibility. Tehran’s chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, a zealous conservative, whom pro-reformists have criticized for his role in the case, had handed over the investigation into her death to the military, student news agency ISNA reported earlier.
Zahra, 54, died in hospital after a brain hemorrhage resulting from a blow to the head following her arrest last month, an official report into her death said Monday. On Khatami’s orders, Justice Minister Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi instructed Mortazavi to find those responsible.
But ISNA said Mortazavi’s decision to pass the buck to the military signified a denial that Zahra suffered the fatal blow while in his custody, and that if misconduct was to blame for her death, it was the fault of police and intelligence ministry officials, ISNA added.
Military prosecutors deal with alleged offences by intelligence, military and security officials, judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told the agency. But Khatami said after the weekly Cabinet meeting that the judiciary had promised him the probe would be given to an independent examining magistrate “connected neither to military justice nor to the Tehran prosecutor’s office.”
Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi for his part said that, “A competent, independent and experienced judge must be appointed.” “Lawyers must be present and everything must take place in transparency and in public,” he told a press conference. Yunesi said his department would cooperate fully and he would name any guilty intelligence agent, adding that he had no objection to Zahra’s family being represented by foreign lawyers.
Zahra was arrested on June 23 outside Tehran’s Evin prison while she was taking photographs of protesters demanding the release of relatives locked up during last month’s anti-regime protests. She was admitted three days later to Baghiatollah Azam hospital, which is run by the hard-line Revolutionary Guards, where she died.
The official inquiry ordered by Khatami said Zahra died after “either a hard object struck her head, or her head struck a hard object.” It failed to say how or when after her arrest, she suffered the fatal blow, other than that it was in the 36 hours before she was admitted to hospital on June 27.
Following her arrest, Zahra spent 21 hours with prosecutors, then 26 hours in police hands, a further four hours with prosecutors and finally 26 hours being questioned by intelligence ministry officials. Several pro-reformists have lashed out at the judiciary, a bastion of conservatism in the Islamic republic, and Tehran’s prosecution department for their role in the case.
Meanwhile, Iran said a visit to Tehran by legal experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency does not mean it has agreed to allow surprise inspections of its nuclear sites. Khatami said the European Union was free to make demands of Tehran but Iran would act in line with its own national interest, regardless of whether the dispute goes to the UN Security Council. The IAEA visit “does not mean that we have accepted the additional protocol” to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty permitting the surprise checks, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said.
