Iran admits Canadian journalist probably murdered

By Paul Hughes

TEHRAN, July 30 (Reuters) - Iran acknowledged on Wednesday that Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in custody in Iran this month, was probably murdered.

"The high possibility is that her murder was caused by a hemorrhage caused by a blow," Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

Abtahi had hinted as much two weeks ago but since then an initial government inquiry left open whether a blow to Kazemi's skull had been deliberate or accidental.

The Montreal-based journalist, 54, who held Iranian and Canadian passports, died on July 10, more than two weeks after her arrest for taking pictures outside a Tehran prison.

Her death has strained diplomatic relations between Ottawa and Tehran and cast a spotlight on Iran's shadowy security services and treatment of the media.

Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham welcomed Abtahi's remarks as recognizing what Canada had always assumed, that Kazemi was murdered.

"We're monitoring with great interest the unfolding of the inquiry," Graham said in a statement. "We will keep in contact with Iranian officials to follow the results of the investigation and continue to claim the return of Mrs. Kazemi's remains."

Iran's ability to unravel the case and punish the culprits is seen as a key test of reformist President Mohammad Khatami's struggle to exert his authority over hardline rivals who control the judiciary and other powerful state institutions.

An initial government inquiry into the three days Kazemi spent under interrogation did not establish who may have caused the blow to Kazemi's skull. Some hardline commentators in Iran speculated her injury was an accident or was self-inflicted.

But Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian told the official IRNA news agency that examinations suggested the fracture to her skull could not have been caused "by falling down or a normal impact of the head against an object."

FIVE IN DETENTION

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari told reporters the investigating judge had requested the detention of the five people who were in contact with Kazemi before her death.

Graham said on Tuesday he had been told by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi that the five arrested were a mixture of prison guards and intelligence operatives.

Kazemi's mother was quoted on Wednesday as saying she had agreed to bury her daughter in Iran against her will.

In an interview with the Yas-e No newspaper, Ezzet Kazemi said she had signed a statement at Canada's embassy agreeing to let her daughter's body be taken to Canada, where Kazemi's son and the Canadian government had demanded its return.

But, while staying with the mother of one of her daughter's friends in Tehran, she received nightly visits from people who used threats and promises to get her to change her mind.

"I had no other choice. I didn't have money, I was alone and I had no other place to go...They wanted the burial to take place as soon as possible. They wanted to get rid of it," she added.

The decision to bury Kazemi in her birthplace in Iran outraged Canada, which recalled its ambassador. Canadian foreign affairs spokeswoman Marie-Christine Lilkoff indicated that any decision on his return would have to await the conclusion of the inquiry.

Kazemi said she had flown to Tehran from Shiraz, where she lives, immediately after she was informed of her daughter's arrest. She was eventually taken to see her daughter who was lying in a coma in a hospital run by the Revolutionary Guards.

Kazemi said she had noticed heavy bruising on one of her daughter's thighs and her hands. When she queried this, she was told it was due to injections her daughter had received.

"I don't know what the reason for her death was... All I want is for the killer of my daughter to suffer the same fate as my child. I want this person to be executed," she said.

Mousavi-Lari said three post-mortems had stated that Kazemi's body had no injuries other than the skull fracture.

(Additional reporting by Randall Palmer in Ottawa)