Iran is admitting for the first time that a Canadian photojournalist who died in police custody was probably murdered.

"The high possibility is that her murder was caused by a hemorrhage caused by a blow," Iran's Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Kazemi, 54, died on July 10, two weeks after her arrest for taking pictures outside a prison. A presidential commission found she died of a fractured skull, while a judiciary is to identify blame and prosecute those responsible.

The case has strained diplomatic relations between Ottawa and Tehran. Canada recalled its ambassador to Iran, Philip MacKinnon, last week for consultations on the case. It's not known when he might go back.

Meanwhile, her son, Stephan Hachemi, who lives in Montreal, has been fighting to get her body returned to Canada. On Tuesday, he met with MacKinnon and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham.

"I won't stop until I see her here in Canada," Hachemi said as he left the meeting.

Kazemi's body has been buried in Shiraz, her home town, about 900 kilometres south of Tehran.

Now her mother has told an Iranian newspaper it was against her wishes too.

She says she only agreed after being threatened by men who visited her home in the middle of the night.

"I had no choice," she said. "I didn't have money, and I was alone. They wanted the burial as soon as possible, to get rid of the body."

Graham said he told Hachemi the Canadian government would do "everything it can to pressure this case." He did not say what specific actions might be taken against the Iranian government.

He has learned that a special prosecutor has been assigned to the case. Graham also said Iran's foreign affairs minister confirmed that five intelligence and prison officials had been arrested in Kazemi's beating death.

With reports from CTV's Jed Kahane and The Canadian Press