There is no indication that the shooting was anything other than part of a criminal action. No one suspects it is linked to the recent case of an Iranian diplomat accused of touching the genitals of young swimmers in a pool.
According to the website Brazil Dispatch, three men approached the Iranian as he was leaving a supermarket at about 10:45 p.m. last Monday night in Brasilia.
The driver did not speak Portuguese and did not understand what the three men were saying. He resisted them and one man drew a pistol and shot him.
Police said the Iranian was hospitalized but was not at risk of death. The report did not say whether the man was driving an embassy vehicle or his own private car.
The Brazilian accused of touching the children in the pool has since left Brazil and the story has faded from the media.
Many in Brazil were offended when the Iranian embassy said the diplomat, the Number Three man in the embassy, had done nothing wrong and the incident was merely a “cultural misunderstanding.”
A week before the pool incident, the embassy said that President Ahmadi-nejad would visit Brazil during an upcoming tour of Latin America.