ICC Note:

Some believe that Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a convert to Christianity, was killed by Iranian spies in Houston for being outspoken about the Iran’s Islamic theocracy, Mohabat News reports.

6/23/2012 Iran (Mohabat News) – Gelareh Bagherzadeh was an Iranian-born woman, newly converted to Christianity. She volunteered as a Persian-language translator at church and was about to graduate from university and had already found a job.

Why on earth would someone want to kill her?

That question has befuddled family, friends and police for five months, ever since Bagherzadeh, 30, was found in mid-January slumped over the steering wheel of her Nissan Altima steps from her home with a single gunshot wound to the head.

“It’s a unique case,” says Houston Police Sgt. J.C. Padilla, the lead investigator on the case. “It’s a senseless crime that happened to a young, intelligent female who had her future taken away from her. Someone out there knows what happened.”

The facts that nothing was stolen from her car and that Bagherzadeh was an outspoken activist against Iran’s Islamic theocracy, championed women’s rights in the Middle East and had recently converted from Islam to Christianity have spawned a host of theories about her murder (everything from an Iranian intelligence agency hit to claims of other foreign government involvement).

Police say they have found no evidence linking the killing to foreign assassins but are still investigating. In fact, they have no leads or suspects. Her family says that’s not enough, and they would like to see participation by federal investigators.

“We believe she was targeted,” says her father, Ebrahim Bagherzadeh. “Why or by whom? We don’t know.”

Last month, Crime Stoppers said it’s offering up to $200,000 for information leading to her killer’s arrest — the highest cash reward ever offered in the organization’s three-decade history amid a rush of private donations.

Thousands of murders go unsolved each year in the USA, and Bagherzadeh’s case has been added to a growing tally of such crimes that wreck families, orphan children and rattle communities from coast to coast. Indeed, of the 14,700 killings in the USA in 2010, 5,100 remain unsolved, according to FBI statistics. It’s the unique nature of this case — the Iranian connection, Bagherzadeh’s activist bent, what appears to be a calculated killing — that have made it resonate well beyond the confines of the nation’s fourth-largest city.

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