Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The criminal who killed a French citizen in Iran’s central city of Isfahan earlier this week was arrested by the Iranian security and police forces last night, an informed source said on Friday.
“The fugitive murderer, Kazem Shafiyee, was arrested in the vicinity of the city of Isfahan as result of continued and constant follow-ups to the case by the security and intelligence forces,” The source told FNA.
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi who is currently on a visit to Isfahan to inaugurate and visit several projects in the historical city, is due to provide further details about the case in a televised interview tonight.
The young French tourist, Julien Van Waesberghe, was shot dead on Monday in Isfahan, one of the country’s main tourist draws.
A statement by local police earlier announced that Shafiyee had “recently killed a member of the security forces and unfortunately had not been arrested”.
The police statement named the suspected murderer as 27-year-old Kazem Shafiyee from the southern city of Shiraz who was on the run after an armed robbery.
“The identity of the murderer is known to the police… the attack against the foreign citizen is part of the desperate actions of this fugitive thief,” it added.
An Iranian official, who asked not to be named, said Waesberghe, 24, had died of his wounds after being taken to hospital.
The official said the incident took place around Isfahan bus station while the victim and his unidentified partner were waiting to travel to the city of Yazd to the south.
Following the incident, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini expressed the government’s regrets.
Isfahan in central Iran is a former imperial capital and home to a cluster of historically important palaces and mosques around the UNESCO-listed Naqsh-e Jahan Square, one of the largest in the world.
The city is visited by thousands of foreign tourists each year and is considered as a safe heaven for all Iranian and foreign nationals.
