last Monday in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and the Islamic Republic made a political issue of the homicide, calling in the Canadian chargé d’affaires and demanding that the killers be arrested.
Before the chargé was called in, Ottawa police had already arrested three Arab citizens of Canada. Police said their investigation was not yet complete and gave no motive. However, the Ottawa Citizen quoted unnamed sources as saying the police did not suspect the murder was gang-related but thought it might be tied to low-level drug dealing.
Two neighbors of the man charged with the killing told the Ottawa Citizen they had personally watched drug deals taking place in front of his home.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry treated the homicide as more sinister. The Islamic Republic has adopted a very harsh line on Canada in recent years, painting it as a serial human rights violator with an anti-Iranian bent. Tehran turned hostile to Canada after the Canadian government began sponsoring annual resolutions in the United Nations critical of Iran’s human rights conduct.
Canada took on that role after Zahra Kazemi, a dual Canadian-Iranian national, died in police custody in Iran. A physician who later defected form Iran said he treated Kazemi after she was brought unconscious to his hospital from Evin Prison. He said she was badly beaten and that a number of fingernails and toenails were missing.
The dead youth in Ottawa was identified as sixteen-year-old Yazdan Ghiasi, a junior at a Roman Catholic high school. It was only the 10th homicide in Ottawa this year.
The mother of an 18-year-old Vietnamese neighbor, David Nguyen, told reporters her son was smoking on his front porch and watched as Ghiasi got into a parked car in the street. Later her son heard two gunshots, looked up and saw Ghiasi’s body being pushed out of the car into the street. She said her son ran to the car but the driver sped off.
Ghiasi had been shot in the chest.
A taxi was also parked in the street and the driver wrote down the license plate number, police said. The vehicle was quickly checked and found registered to Ottawa Metro Towing & Recovery Inc., a firm with a police contract to tow vehicles in one part of the capital and owned by a family named Wehbe.
Within hours, the police charged the son of the owners, Abdulhamid Wehbe, 20, with second degree murder, a preliminary charge that suggested the police did not have enough evidence to charge him with first degree homicide. They also arrested Khalid Wehbe, 19, and Zakaria Dourhnou, 18, and charged them with being accessories after the fact. Court documents said the two were trying to help the accused killer escape, knowing he had shot Ghiasi.
None of the three has a police record, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Neighbors said Dourhnou and his mother came to Canada about a decade ago from Morocco. The birthplace of the Wehbes was not provided, but Wehbe is a prominent name in Lebanon.
Friends and neighbors of the dead youth said they knew nothing of any drug involvement. Ghiasi was described as a quiet youth who was into tae kwon do and track. He wanted to pursue a college degree in mechanical engineering. He was in an after-school homework club trying to improve his marks in physics.
His father recently bought him a motorcycle, a friend told reporters, but he had not yet had the time to take lessons.
The murder occurred Monday. Iran did not summon the Canadian chargé until the following Sunday. In between, on Friday, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement for Human Rights day, in which Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon cited just two countries by name for violations: North Korea and Iran. That statement—saying, “The International community will never abandon the Iranian people in their quest for human rights”—may have been what precipitated the summoning of the chargé.
Although the three men had long since been in custody, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said, “Pursuit and punishment of the perpetrators of this crime is the duty of the Canadian government.” That could have left the impression with the Iranian public that Canada was doing nothing about the murder.
“The Iranian embassy in Canada has put the pursuit of the issue on the top of its agenda and sent a formal message to the Canadian Foreign Ministry calling for the capture of the criminals,” Mehman-Parast said, again ignoring the three arrests.
Mehman-Parast then complained that Canada had done nothing in six months to apprehend the killers of two other Iranians in Canada, whom he identified as Mrs. Zohreh Ehsani and a Mrs. Dashti. A computer search turned up no reports of anyone named Zohreh Ehsani being murdered in Canada this year.
Mehman-Parast warned all Canadians against making unnecessary trips to Canada, further cementing the impression that the Canadian authorities do not care if harm befalls Iranians in Canada. He said the Ghiasi murder proved the accuracy of the ministry’s earlier warnings that security for Iranians in Canada was declining.
More than 150 people attended Ghiasi’s funeral last Thursday at the Ottawa mosque. His mother, Negin, frequently called out her son’s name during the service. His father, Ali, sat on the floor next to the casket with his arm draped around it and his head resting against its wooden side. Ghiasi also leaves a 13-year-old sister.
