Monday, October 31, 2005

TORONTO - A Canadian judge has ruled that courts in Iran can't be trusted to hold a fair trial, saying they lack independence from Tehran's hardline Islamic regime.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge ruled that a Canadian company suing the Iranian state oil company could not get an impartial trial in Tehran.

"I am satisfied that the Iranian courts cannot be counted on to adjudicate the claims (of the Canadian company)... in a fair manner," Justice Susan Greer wrote in the decision handed down last month.

Two key witnesses, both Canadian company executives, were afraid to return to Iran to testify, the judge said, since Iranian intelligence agents had allegedly forced one of them to sign a contract handing four oil rigs to Iran.

The judge added that "I have no confidence" the Canadian company would ever collect even if it were successful in the Iranian courts. To make matters worse, she suspected the case would be heard by Iran's Revolutionary Court. By contrast, the judge said "the defendants would receive a fair trial in Ontario."

The ruling, the latest blow to Iran's international reputation, comes as its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is facing condemnation for saying Israel "must be wiped out."

Relations between Canada and Tehran have been in a downward spiral since Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi was raped and murdered while in Iranian custody in 2003.

Since then, Canada has been increasingly critical of the regime.

The Ontario judge was ruling in a $350-million U.S. lawsuit brought by Crown Resources Corporation against the National Iranian Oil Company involving a dispute over a contract to drill 53 oil wells in Iran. The Iranian company argued the Ontario court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, but the judge said the matter should be heard in Ontario because a fair trial was unlikely in Iran.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2005