EXPERTS AND JURISTS BLAST THE OFFICIAL REPORT ON KAZEMI’S DEATH
PARIS 21 July (IPS) As expected, the report released on Sunday evening by the investigation committee sat by President Mohammad Khatami on the death of Ms. Zahra Kazemi deceived all Iranian jurists, experts and observers, except for Iranian conservatives-controlled press that welcomed it as a "rebuff to all those who wanted to discredit the Iranian Judiciary".
Though the report, complied by ministers of Justice, Interior, Intelligence, Islamic Guidance and Health confirms that the 54 years-old Canadian photojournalist of Iranian origin died of brain hemorrhage caused by a "heavy object that hit the head" and not on brain stroke, as initially stated by officials, but it do not say how it happened, exactly when and where?
According to the report, the incident happened three days after her detention and "probably 24 hours before", not making clear that at that time, which of the Tehran Prosecutor, the Intelligence Unit of the law Enforcement Forces (LEF) or the Intelligence Ministry that interrogated her one after another had Ms. Kazemi in its custody.
More over, the report’s overtone is that because of her
"aggressive and provocative" attitude during interrogations she might
have provoked the interrogators to some violence on her.
In an interview with the Persian service of the BBC, Mr. Stephen Hachemi, the 26 years-old son of the defunct says he is not satisfied with the report and urges the Iranian authorities to immediately send the body of her mother to Canada.
On Saturday, Stephen’s grandmother, Mrs. Ezzat kazemi, called on the Canadian Embassy in Tehran and signed a document authorising the body of her daughter to be transferred to Canada.
Mr. Hachemi also demanded that an international committee of jurists and medical experts be sent to Tehran to investigate the death of her mother.
Dr. Karim Lahiji, the deputy president of the International Federation of Human Rights leagues who acts as Mr. Hachemi’s defence also insisted on the "necessity" of having the death that he described as a "deliberate assassination", to be investigated by an independent body made of international lawyers and medical forensics.
"Under present conditions in the Islamic Republic, there is absolutely not possible to have the case investigated independently, as seen by the presidential investigation committee’s report, which is full of dark points, not answering any of the basic questions", he told Iran Press Service.
Like other experts and observers, he also confirmed all the shortcomings of the report as raised and highlighted by IPS in its 20 July story, including the fact that though it is clear that it was the notorious Judge Sa’id Mortazavi, the new public prosecutor of Tehran who ordered the arrest and personally carried out parts of the interrogations, the report do not mention him by name, nor any of the interrogators.
The report says after she bled from her nose and blood was observed in her vomit, she had been presented to the hospital on digestive tube complications and doctors treated her on that problem.
In another passage, the report states that the ministers received "full reports" from all the organs that held Ms. Kazemi, except the prosecutor, but it fails to publish them and concludes that:
Ms. Kazemi refused to eat during all the time she was in detention, drinking water only;
On various episodes of the interrogation, she offered vague and inconsistent answers to questions, failing to give clear answers;
On 6 July, she was freed by the judge on a 5 millions bails and handed over to the family at the hospital;
Her provocative, aggressive and unnatural attitude during the detention is confirmed by all three organs that had her in custody;
When at the hands of the LEF, no other discomfort has been recorded except complains from punishing actions from agents in charge.
Observers noted that the report states that Ms Kazemi had been "freed and handed over to the family at the site of the hospital against a 5 million toomans (some 5.000 Euros or 5.300 US Dollars) bail" while at this very time she was in coma and presumed dead.
They also observed that while she had been taken to hospital for blood observed in her vomit, yet, according to the report, she had already been hit on the head with a "heavy object".
According to a story run by the French leftist daily "Liberation", Mortazavi hit the photographer’s head with his shoe. In a speech at the open session of the Majles on Sunday, Mr. Mohsen Armin, an outspoken reformer lawmaker openly accused Mr. Mortazavi of being the main responsible of the tragic death of Ms. Kazemi, reminding that he had ordered her detention on charges of espionage, an accusation not supported by the Intelligence Ministry.
Mr. Armin, a deputy-Speaker and vice-Chairman of the Majles’ Foreign Affairs and national Security Committee indicted indirectly the regime’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, hitting: "We all know that Mortazavi is not a man to commit such rogue actions if he was not assured of protection from powerful people", he told the House.
In his capacity as the leader of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Khameneh’i personally controls the Judiciary and appoints the judges. He personally had promoted recently Mr. Mortazavi to the rank of public and Islamic Revolution tribunal prosecutor in gratitude for his crackdown on the dissidents, arrest of more than 20 leading journalists, and closure of a hundred publications.
On their 21 July editions, conservative newspapers, in a concerted effort to absolve Judge Mortazavi, published the investigation committee’s report partially, highlighting its negative parts, as the passage it presents the photographer as a person with a violent nature behaving aggressively during interrogations and never responding clearly the questions.
While "Keyhan", the mouthpiece of Ayatollah Khameneh’i, said Ms. Kazemi spent only 4 hours at the prosecutor’s office, ignoring that the report say she was detained 21 hours here and the prosecutor, MEANING Mr. Mortazavi, was present at times at the interrogations, "Resalat", another hard line paper close to the bazaar oligarchy almost points the finger at the Intelligence Ministry as the culprit.
"Why, while Kazemi was in the hands of the Information Ministry during the last stages of the interrogation, the said Ministry keep silence, provides no information as what happened there?", the paper asked an in effort to blame the government for the death of the photographer.
Meanwhile, the Canadian government, which until now has gone slow motion on the case, was expected to tell the Islamic Republic that it was not satisfied with the inter-ministerial report in the one hand and urge Tehran to move faster of the transfer of the body to Canada.
In their meeting on Monday in Brussels, foreign affairs ministers of the European Union also called on Iranian authorities to identify and bring to justice all those responsible for the tragic death of Ms. Kazemi. ENDS JOURNALIST DIES 21703