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Omid Memarian
o.memarian@roozonline.com

Rahim Baniyaghoob is Zahra Baniyaghoob’s brother. She died under suspicious ‎circumstances in the offices of the Moral Police in Hamedan on October 13, 2007. He ‎told Rooz that he will never accept the official statement that his sister committed ‎suicide. Read on for the interview:‎

Rooz (R ): What have you learned through your investigation?‎
Rahim Baniyaghoob (RB): They have not given me any specific replies. They have not ‎even identified the specific court date - that is if there is going to be a trial.‎

R: In an earlier interview you said that you were in telephone contact with your sister ‎minutes before she died and that she did not display any signs that she was suicidal. Has ‎this point been considered in the investigation?‎
RB: Yes, we have expressed this point. But regardless of this, how could someone have ‎prepared the means to commit suicide in such a short time, implement her idea and get ‎results? It is absolutely not possible.‎

R: Do you have access to the witnesses and exhibits of the case?‎
RB: Last time they did not give the photographs to the defense attorneys. But they will ‎probably give them such access later. Still, there are a number of ambiguities in the case. ‎We have the telephone records for the past two months. And even though one of the ‎personnel has said that, “At a particular time, I took her so that she could talk to her ‎brother,” my phone records do not show any telephone conversation. This is one ‎ambiguity. It is as if this telephone conversation never took place.‎

R: What else?‎
RB: They showed us a shoe print and said that Zahra stepped on to that chair to hang ‎herself. But this seems meaningless (impossible) considering her condition. Because ‎when Zahra’s body was found, she was not wearing any shoes. Later, the authorities said ‎that they had made a mistake and that the shoe prints did not belong to Zahra but were ‎somebody else’s. We asked for the scene to be recreated to see if it was even possible to ‎hang in a room with 1.5 meters in height. How can something happen in these cells ‎without others knowing about it? Who can believe such a thing. ‎

R: Did they accept to recreate the scene?‎
RB: No. We asked different people, and they all said no.‎

R: What did you do when you heard that the defenders had been released on the small ‎bail of 1 million Toman (about $150,000)?‎
RB: What can I say. We went to some senior officials and requested that the case be ‎transferred from Hamedan to Tehran because we felt that there were cover-ups and ‎manipulations of the case, and because we had little access to anybody in Hamedan. ‎

R: What do you mean by manipulations?‎
RB: The head of Hamedan’s Morals Police is a powerful person who still holds his job. ‎He is strong and probably has many connections. But can he really not do anything to ‎remove the ambiguities of the case? I think he can easily do it.‎

R: What do the defense attorneys say?‎
RB: They too say that if the case remains in Hamedan, nothing will change. We even ‎wrote to the head of the judiciary, Mr. Shahrudi about this and await his response.‎

R: What is your next step?‎
RB: We are trying our utmost to bring the case to Tehran which is a neutral forum. ‎Otherwise, there is nothing else we can do. The other side is very powerful. What else ‎can I say.‎

R: How is your family? Their morale?‎
RB: My mother is under the supervision of a psychologist. She is under severe pressure. ‎Her blood pressures is very high.‎

R: How do you think this even took place? ‎
RB: Zahra was fine a few minutes before the event. We had a regular conversation over ‎the phone and I told her that my dad would be soon coming to resolve the issue. I think ‎there was a verbal exchange after that, particularly because there was blood from her ‎nose and ears, which has not been recorded in the file.‎

R: This does not seem to match the hanging story ..‎
RB: Yes. There are of course other discrepancies too. I am afraid that if I mention those ‎too, they will simply justify them the next day. I am afraid mentioning them will actually ‎create more problems.‎

R: How so?‎
RB: They will wash it away. There are many ambiguities in the file and I prefer to keep ‎them there until we go to court.‎

R: In view of what you have already experienced, what are the changes that the truth will ‎come out of all this?‎
RB: What can I say. We have faith in God. We must be optimistic. I don’t really know.‎

R: Were you emotionally close to your sister?‎
RB: Very, very close. We were the only brother and sister. We were extremely close.‎

R: Is this idea of suicide compatible with her personality?‎
RB: When I last spoke with her, there was absolutely, absolutely no such thing in her ‎mood. When the last words in a conversation are ‘dear brother’ and ‘dear sister’, which ‎was normal, how could anyone think that she was getting ready for such a thing (i.e. ‎suicide). I will not accept this until my death. There is zero possibility for such a thing.‎

R: What kind of a person was she?‎
RB: She was a top student in most of her classes. And while she could have selected the ‎special university program and gone to a more convenient school because her father was ‎a political prisoner during the monarchy, she chose not to utilize this option and in fact ‎went to the most deprived places. Places that do not even exist on the Iranian map. Her ‎passion was to say that she was serving people. In the village where she served, because ‎some people could not go to the clinic, she went to them to take care of them. She viewed ‎such gestures as her human duty. Her colleagues said that her clothes were always dusty. ‎They have many stories about her. She had a wonderful spirit.‎

R: What do you think about the fact that this event took place at a place called the Morals ‎Office?‎
RB: When we have a police force in the country, why must these individuals act in such ‎capacity, and end up with such situations? I could never believe that something like this ‎could happen to my sister. I never thought that a person’s life could be so easily played ‎with.‎