U.S. Condemns Iranian’s Presence At Geneva Parley
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON – America has joined Canada and numerous human rights groups in condemning the participation of the man responsible for the torture and murder of a Canadian photojournalist in this week’s meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
A spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Paul Denig, said yesterday that America has joined in “deploring the presence of Tehran prosecutor general Saeed Mortazavi,” calling his presence at the Geneva parley both “discordant” and a “mockery.”
“It is reprehensible that Iran’s observer mission includes an individual like Saeed Mortazavi, whom two official Iranian government investigations have found responsible for the illegal arrest and detention of Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, resulting in her torture and death,” Mr. Denig said.
Mr. Mortazavi also was the lead prosecutor in the mullahs’ case against a dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji. He is said to have been responsible for closing more than 100 newspapers in Iran and recently ordered the detention and arrest of Iranian bloggers.
Reports earlier this week that Canada would seek to extradite the Iranian prosecutor for his role in the murder of Kazemi are not accurate, a spokesman for Canada’s Foreign Ministry told The New York Sun yesterday. No extradition requests for Mr. Mortazavi have been made to the Swiss government, the Canadian spokesman said.
