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News & Views Iranian intellectual dies in suspicious circumstances TEHRAN, Nov 26 (AFP) - Magid Sharif, an Iranian writer, journalist and translator close to liberal opposition circles, has died here in suspicious circumstances, it was learned here Thursday from associates and a newspaper. \According to the moderate newspaper Hamshahri, the official organ of Tehran municipality, the 58-year-old Sharif "apparently died of a heart attack" on November 19. Sharif had left his home after telling his family that he was going to the eastern city of Mashhad to attend the funeral of an Iranian religious figure. Relatives informed the police on Sunday that he had disappeared and were summoned on Wednesday to identify his body at a Tehran morgue. Hamshahri said a report from the morgue was awaited. Associates and friends of Sharif who attended the funeral here Thursday of a nationalist dissident assassinated at his Tehran home over the weekend cast doubt on the circumstances of Sharif's death. They told AFP they were surprised that the family was summoned to identify the body nearly a week after the presumed date of his death. They also expressed surprise that the body was dressed in sports clothes when Sharif was supposedly on his way to a funeral in the holy city of Mashhad. (Exiled former Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr claimed in a statement issued in Paris on Wednesday that Sharif had been murdered and denounced what he described as a "wave of terror" in Iran. (According to Banisadr, Sharif had been repeatedly summoned to the intelligence ministry, including last Thursday.) Sharif wrote articles for the monthly Iran Farda, which is close to the Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI), an Islamic liberal opposition group which is banned but tolerated by the authorities. The holder of a doctorate in political science from a French university, Sharif recently gave two interviews to the magazine Azadi (Freedom) in which he advocated a separation between the state and religion. He also translated a book by the controversial French writer Roger Garaudy into Persian. Hamshahri said Sharif would be buried here Friday. Links * Iran News
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