July 20, 2003	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1424

TEHRAN, July 19: An Iranian-Canadian photographer who died in Iran after her arrest was killed by a blow to the head that was possibly inflicted during a scuffle with prison guards, the student news agency ISNA reported Saturday.

Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Ali-Asghr Ahmadi confirmed that the coroner’s office here had concluded, in a report commissioned by President Mohammad Khatami, that Zahra Kazemi had died as a result of a “blow to the head by a hard object”.

But he told ISNA that the report into her death “does not say whether this object struck her head or her head struck the object”, adding that further investigation was needed and that her body was still in the coroner’s office.—AFP