ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A senior Iranian police official said that a man has been arrested in connection with a female hotel worker’s death, which has triggered protests and riots in the country’s Kurdish Mahabad region, the Tasnim news agency reported.
It quoted Saeed Montazer Almahdi, Iran’s deputy police chief, as saying that the suspect had confessed to being with Farinaz Khosrawani when she fell to her death from the fourth floor of the Tara Hotel.
“He has been arrested, handed over to the judicial authorities and he has confessed,” Almahdi said, without giving the suspect’s name or specifying what he had confessed to.
Anti-government media and Kurdish protesters claim Khosrawani jumped to her death to avoid the sexual advances of an Iranian army officer who was allegedly working in cooperation with the hotel's owner --- accusations unconfirmed by Rudaw.
But according to Almahdi, Khosrawani had tried to escape the hotel room by jumping from one balcony to the next when she lost her grip and fell.
“This incident took place when the young woman had learned that her family and hotel manager had found out about her work and she tried to go from one balcony to the next but unfortunately she fell and died,” the deputy police chief was quoted as saying.
On Thursday, thousands of Mahabad residents took to the streets, clashed with police and torched the Tara Hotel to protest the circumstances of Khosrawani’s death, who allegedly was trying to escape being raped by a government official
More than 25 people were injured in the clashes and the demonstrations spread to the nearby city of Sardasht.
Almahdi said that a number of people have been detained in relation to the Mahabad clashes.
According to a report on BBC Persian, Alireza Radfar, the deputy governor of Western Azerbaijan province where Mahabad is the capital, Khosrawani and the suspect were in a romantic relationship.
“Some kind of acquaintance existed between the two of them, but medical exams show that no immoral relationship had taken place,” Radfar was quoted as saying.
He said Khosrawani had tried to escape the hotel after the hotel manager had informed her mother of the relationship.
However, Abullah Muhtadi, secretary general of the Kurdish Komala party told Rudaw that Khosrawani was an accountant at the hotel and did not know the man. He said the 25-year-old had jumped to her death to escape being sexually assaulted.
“It is said there were signs of a fight between the two and her clothes were torn and there were bruises on her body,” according to Muhtadi.
