No forensic exam of Kazemi's remains: Iran

CBC News:

Iran won't allow an international team of forensic scientists to examine the body of Zahra Kazemi as Canada has demanded, an Iranian official said Tuesday. READ MORE

"Such a demand does not conform with Iranian laws or international regulations," Jamal Karimirad, a spokesperson for Iran's judges, said at a media briefing.

Kazemi, a 54-year-old Iranian-Canadian photographer, died several days after being arrested in Tehran in 2003.

At first Iranian officials said Kazemi had died of a stroke. Then a commission declared that she had succumbed to a head injury caused when she fell.

Her body was buried in her home village in Iran without ever being viewed by outside investigators.

Kazemi's son and an Iranian doctor who says he examined her in a Tehran hospital before her death insist she was tortured.

The doctor, Shahram Azam, came forward at the end of March to describe horrific injuries to Kazemi's body. She also showed signs of having been brutally raped, he said.

Azam's statement led to Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, to call for an international forensic exam.

Karimirad rejected that call Tuesday.

"Kazemi was an Iranian citizen. Although she also had Canadian nationality, under Iran's laws, an additional citizenship doesn't negate her Iranian nationality," he said. "Therefore, Iran's judiciary is competent to carry out the investigation."

The Iranian official also said Azam had never seen Kazemi, as the doctor claimed, but was making false accusations in order to obtain political asylum in Canada.