Tehran, 16 Nov. (AKI) - The sole defendant in the trial for the death of Canadian photo-reporter, Zahra Kazemi in Tehran in July 2003, has been acquitted by an appeals court. The court has absolved Reza Ahmadi, "because the inquiries carried out to date on other accused have not been satisfactory, it is not possible to condemn one of the co-defendants". Kazemi, 54, a Canadian of Iranian origin, was arrested in June 2003 after taking photos of demonstrations outside a Tehran prison.She died in a Tehran hospital on 10 July 2003 after falling into a coma, having received head injuries during more than three days of interrogation.
Zahra Kazemi's son, Stephan Hashemi, contacted by phone in Canada, said the sentence was "not surprising, given that we are talking about justice in a country where reading a book is a crime punishable with prison or torture". Hashemi told Adnkronos International (AKI) that he did not expect anything from the Tehran courts. "What I want is an international trial against the murderers of my mother, whose only crime was to conduct honestly her profession as photo-reporter".
In April this year, the Iranian Judiciary rejected the Canadian demands to return Kazemi’s body and to hold an independent autopsy, arguing that Kazemi was Iranian and that only the Iranian judiciary had jurisdiction in this case. According to a parliamentary inquiry, carried out under the previous legislature, the orders to kill Zahra Kazemi came from Tehran's chief prosecutor, Saiid Mortazavi.
| OK, Canada, what ya gonna do? |