The Iranian government has said that it agrees with the acquittal of a secret agent who had been charged with the killing of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, but Canada protested the verdict, hinting at further action to pressure the Middle Eastern country to find out the truth.

Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi was cleared on Saturday of killing Zahra Kazemi, who died of a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage in detention last July.

“The Iranian government from the beginning believed the defendant was innocent and the court came to the same conclusion,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday.

In Canada, however, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said that the verdict did nothing to ensure that truth and justice prevail, and called on Iranian authorities to redouble their efforts to find out the truth.

He hinted at further legal or diplomatic steps to put pressure on Iran, saying the Canadian government is ”reviewing its options”. But he did not detail any initiatives.

“This trial has done nothing to answer the real questions about how Zahra Kazemi died, and to bring the perpetrators of her murder to justice”, said Mr Pettigrew.

“The government of Canada continues to insist that justice be done. The process has to be both transparent and credible … I hope that the Iranian judiciary will have the courage to act.”

Little detail on the ruling was available. Iran-Canada relations, soured by the killing and subsequent burial in Iran against the wishes of Kazemi’s son in Canada, further deteriorated after Iran rejected the idea of Canadian observers attending the trial.

Relations were further strained when the Canadian ambassador was not allowed to attend the last session of the open trial on July 18.

Kazemi, a Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died July 10, 2003, while in detention for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling theocracy.

Iranian authorities initially said Kazemi died of a stroke but a presidential committee later found she died of a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage.

Ahmadi pleaded innocent on July 17 and the trial was abruptly ended the next day.

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