Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has urged the authorities to quickly investigate the murders of prominent film director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife, who were found dead in their home near Tehran at the weekend. Raisi instructed law enforcement and security agencies to work on the case with ‘double seriousness and speed,’ according to a government statement on Monday. On Saturday, Mehrjui, one of Iran’s most prominent filmmakers, and his wife Vahideh Mohammadifar were killed. According to a report in the newspaper Shargh, the Iranian director’s daughter found the couple in their villa. The two had been stabbed in the neck with a knife or sharp object, the newspaper reported, citing police. The Etemad newspaper reported that two senior media executives were summoned by the judiciary in connection with their reporting on the murder case, including a manager of the newspaper. Iran’s ISNA news agency reported society’s mental wellness as the reason, citing the public prosecutor’s office in the capital Tehran. The Etemad newspaper wrote on Saturday that Mehrjui’s wife Mohammadifar said she had been threatened before the murder. Mehrjui was one of the pioneers of Iran’s new wave of cinema, into which he introduced neo-realism. He won the Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1971 with his 1969 film ‘The Cow’ and gained international acclaim.
Source: Ghana News Agency