Ottawa Investigates Rape Charge in Photojournalist Case

August 25, 2003
National Post
Tom Blackwell

The federal government and Lawyers without Borders are looking into allegations that Iranian interrogators raped a Montreal photo-journalist before killing her, then pumped chemicals into her body to speed decomposition.

Both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the human rights group say they have asked Iranian authorities investigating Zahra Kazemi's death to try to verify the latest claims.

Hamid Mojtahedi, a Toronto lawyer who is in Iran on behalf of the rights group, stressed the reports are completely uncorroborated at this point.

"Some sources advised us that this might have been the case and we are trying to substantiate it," he told the National Post yesterday in an interview from Tehran.

"We had a meeting with the prosecutor-general of Tehran, who has basically seized the case for some time.... He promised to co-operate with us and advise us if any such thing did happen."

A Texas-based Iranian opposition group went further yesterday, claiming it has received convincing reports from sources in the country's intelligence community that the photographer was raped and chemicals used to more quickly erase the evidence.

But Mr. Mojtahedi said Lawyers Without Borders is anxious to maintain its neutrality on the issue. To overplay the reports now "may very well muddy the water, it may very well hinder any investigation the authorities may want to carry out," he said.

"Based on what we have been told at this stage, we should really consider them to be rumours."

Mr. Mojtahedi is in Iran partly to try to get official recognition for his organization to observe future trials, including those of anyone charged in Ms. Kazemi's death.

France Bureau, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs Department, said Canadian authorities are aware of the rape accusations and have also asked local officials to investigate.

"We're looking at it, but we haven't received any corroborating information from Iranian authorities," she said.

The embassy in Tehran has asked for an official briefing on the status of the whole Kazemi investigation, Ms. Bureau added.

Ms. Kazemi, 54, an Iranian ex-patriot based in Montreal, died on July 10, three weeks after authorities arrested her. She had been photographing student-led protests outside a jail in the Islamic republic.

Iranian officials initially denied there had been any wrongdoing, but later confirmed she died as a result of being struck on the head by her captors. A judicial inquiry led to the arrest of five Intelligence Ministry agents, two of whom were released on bail this month.

Canada pulled its ambassador from Tehran after Ms. Kazemi was buried in her birthplace, the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, against the wishes of Canadian authorities and her son, who lives in Montreal.

Aryo Pirouznia of the Dallas-based Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran said intelligence sources told his group Ms. Kazemi had been raped after she slapped one of her interrogators, who had hit her.

Mr. Pirouznia's group is dedicated to replacing the current Islamic regime of Iran with a secular, democratic government.

He said the officers had already forced Ms. Kazemi to say she had been part of the counter-revolutionary movement in Iran, and were trying to get her to confess to working for U.S. intelligence.

Officials later decided to inject her body with chemicals that would decompose the remains faster, making it more difficult to perform a post-mortem, he charged.

The committee had actually heard the report more than two weeks ago, but did not go public to avoid being accused of fabricating the story to embarrass Iranian hardliners, he said.

The group only posted a report on its Web site after Mr. Mojtahedi was quoted about the case on an Iranian-language radio station.

"It is so big, it is so horrible that we didn't want to put it up," said Mr. Pirouznia.

tblackwell@nationalpost.com