Family Blames Iranian Official in Journalist’s Killing

The mother of a slain Iranian-Canadian photojournalist said Saturday that her daughter Zahra Kazemi was tortured while in detention, and lawyers for the family blamed the killing on a hard-line judiciary official and not the intelligence agent on trial for the death.

The victim’s mother, Ezzat, wept and demanded justice during the trial.

“I was forced to consent to quick burial” in Iran, she said, wiping away tears. “Her breast had been burned, her hand and foot had been broken. I saw it myself.”

Mohammed Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the agent and sole person implicated in the killing, pleaded innocent during the trial session, attended by the Canadian and Dutch ambassadors.

If convicted, Ahmadi could be sentenced to life in prison.

Kazemi, a Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died in July 2003 while in detention. She was held for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling Islamic establishment.

Iranian authorities initially denied wrongdoing, saying Kazemi had died of a stroke. Later, a committee appointed by President Mohammad Khatami found that Kazemi had died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, a human rights lawyer representing the family, accused Iran’s hard-line judiciary of illegally detaining and torturing Kazemi.

Ebadi said Mohammed Bakhshi, a judiciary official, delivered the fatal blow to Kazemi’s head, and she urged the court to invite several top officials, including hard-line Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, to explain Kazemi’s death.

Bakhshi has been cleared of any wrongdoing. The indictment against Ahmadi was prepared by the Tehran prosecutor’s office.

Under Iranian law, lawyers can accuse someone already cleared of a crime.

Canadian Ambassador Philip MacKinnon attended the trial. Dutch Ambassador Hein de Vries was also in court as the representative of the European Union. The Netherlands currently holds the rotating EU presidency.