Mohammad Sadat Khansari
An Iranian regime politician turned himself in for fatally shooting his wife — then got served tea by deferential authorities before calmly confessing on state TV, according to reports.
Former Tehran Mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi, 67, surrendered to police after 35-year-old actress Mitra Ostad, the second of his two wives, was found shot dead, the New York Post wrote on Friday.
In footage that has scandalized his nation, Najafi was shown being greeted warmly by authorities, who bowed in deference, and even sipping tea, still with no handcuffs, in the police commander’s office.
Najafi smiled as he told a reporter for the Islamic Republic of Iranian Broadcasting (IRIB) about his “mistake” in shooting Ostad, 35, who he had been trying to divorce, according to the Washington Post.
“I lost my temper and took the gun,” he said, according to the footage. “She went to the shower, and I followed her.
“I just wanted to scare her and showed her the gun.”
He blamed her “special temperament … which caused me to make such a mistake and made her lose her life, too.
“She panicked and attacked me in order to take the gun, and I mistakenly touched the trigger,” he said, according to the Washington Post.
The IRIB reporter was also shown handling the gun allegedly used in the attack — suggesting it was not undergoing strict ballistics’ tests — counting the number of bullets left in the chamber.
“There were 13 bullets in it,” he says. “Five were fired. Two hit the victim, and three hit the wall.”
The next day, Najafi was transferred to Tehran Criminal Court and — dressed in prison garb — now claimed his wife was threatening to reveal “confidential information” to the public and intelligence agencies, according to the report.
“Mitra was controlling all of my moves and contacts,” he said, offering nothing to back up his claims, the Washington Post reported.
His marriage to Ostad last year had already sparked scandal as he was still married to his first wife, with whom he has a daughter, according to the Financial Times, which said polygamy was “socially unacceptable” in Iran despite being legal under the mullahs’ fundamentalist laws.
