of an Iranian-Canadian on death row in Iran, the Iranian government demanded that Canada repatriate an Iranian-Canadian wanted on fraud charges in Iran.
The juxtaposition suggested to some that Iran may be trying to set up a prisoner exchange deal.
On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast demanded that Canada repatriate Mohammed-Reza Khavari, a fugitive banker wanted in Tehran as a central figure in the $2.6 billion bank fraud for which 32 persons are now on trial.
Khavari quietly obtained Canadian citizenship in 2005 before he became the chief of Bank Melli. Last September, when the massive bank fraud was exposed, Khavari resigned from Bank Melli and flew to Toronto, where he owns a mansion in a classy part of the city.
Mehman-Parast said, “We do not recognize dual citizenship and the Canadian government is obligated to repatriate Khavari to Iran.”
Mehman-Parast should know that is false. People of any citizenship can be extradited to another country.
Even native-born Canadians can be extradited from Canada. But Iran has no extradition treaty with Canada, and that is the key fact.
Meanwhile, the Fars news agency quoted Judiciary officials as saying that Interpol “has placed the former Iranian banker on its Red Notice wanted list and issued the verdict to prosecute Khavari.” But that is not true either. Interpol is just a liaison agency between police forces.
It does not arrest or prosecute anyone.
It simply tells police forces all around the world that a person named in its Red Notices is wanted elsewhere in the world.
Last week, the Canadian House of Commons adopted unanimously a resolution appealing to Iran to grant amnesty to Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, 42, who was arrested in 2008 while visiting his family in Iran and convicted in 2009 of espionage. He was sentenced to die and an appeals court recently upheld the sentence, sparking fears he may be hanged at any moment.
Canada is also engaged in the case of Saeed Malekpour, 36, who is a legal resident of Canada but not a dual citizen. Malekpour was similarly arrested in 2008 while visiting his family and has been sentenced to death on charges that he has promoted pornography on the Internet.
His family says a computer program he wrote was bought and used by a website that posted pornography, but that Malekpour had nothing to do with the site.
Since 2003, Canada has also been seeking the body of Zahra Kazemi, a dual citizen photojournalist who died after a beating in Evin prison.
Her son in Canada has called for the body, but Iran has refused to send it. Canada suspects Iran feared Canada would find signs of her treatment in Iran.
In addition, another dual citizen, Hossain Derakhshan, know as the “blogfather” for promoting blogging in Iran, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He, too, was arrested while visiting family.
The proximity of the vote in the House of Commons on Shall and the Iranian comments on Khavari suggest to some that Iran may be interested in some sort of prisoner exchange in order to get Khavari.