Revelations from a former Iranian army doctor reinforce claims Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was brutally beaten, the minister in charge says.

Responding to doctor Sharam Azam's detailed account of his encounter with Kazemi in 2003, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said it is now more clear than ever that her death was not an accident, as Iran claims.

"We know that she was murdered and not the victim of an accident," Pettigrew told reporters in Toronto Thursday.

Condemning what he suggested was a systemic failure in the Iranian justice system, Pettigrew said: "This new evidence only strengthens our positions and confirms our resolve on the case."

Pettigrew's comments were prompted by Azam's presentation at an Ottawa news conference earlier in the day.

Speaking through an interpreter, the doctor who recently received political asylum in Canada said he examined Kazemi a few days after she was arrested for photographing a demonstration outside a Tehran prison.

"Being a doctor, I could see that this has been caused by torture," Azam said, recalling the physical trauma he observed in the 54-year-old Iranian-born dual citizen's body back in June 2003.

"The signs and the bruises that existed, they were not caused at one time, because of the difference in the colour of the bruises, some of them looked fresher than the others."

In light of this evidence, Kazemi's son's lawyers announced Thursday that they have sent a letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin asking if they can meet with him or a senior official to determine where they can go from here.

Azam said the Canadian government was made aware of his account in November.

This testimony -- the first by a medical official -- contradicts what Iranian officials initially said were injuries incurred from fainting and hitting her head.

When Kazemi was brought into the hospital on a stretcher, the doctor was told by officials that the unconscious patient was suffering from a digestive problem, he said.

After examining her, he concluded that there was no digestive bleeding.

According to Azam's medical examination, Kazemi's injuries included:

• a large bruise that stretched from the right side of her forehead to her ear;
• deep scratches behind her neck that "looked like the result of nails digging into the flesh;"
• a bruised right shoulder;
• two broken fingers;
• a broken nose bone;
• three broken and missing fingernails;
• a skull fracture;
• a crushed left toe; and
• a burst ear membrane.

Marks on the backs of her legs and on the heels of her feet indicating that she had likely been flogged.

He said his emergency-room nurse found severe abdominal and "brutal damage of her genital part" that were the result of a savage rape. He said male doctors in his hospital are not permitted to conduct vaginal examinations.

Within a few hours of her hospitalization, she was in respiratory arrest and had been transferred to the intensive care unit, he said. By the next day, doctors pronounced her brain-dead.

When asked how he can prove his testimony is true, Azam said there are documents to prove he was working in the hospital when Kazemi was admitted.

Hachemi's lawyers said the doctor's account matches how Kazemi's mother described her daughter's injuries upon seeing her body.

Azam fled Iran last August after asking to seek medical treatment in Finland. From there he went to Sweden where he contacted Kazemi's son Stephan Hachemi and applied for political asylum in Canada, with the help of Canadian lawyers.

He, his wife and 12-year-old daughter landed in Canada on Monday as refugees sponsored by the Canadian government.

When asked, Azam said he did not make a deal with the Canadian government that expedited his entry into the country. He will not reveal where he intends to reside, for security reasons.

Azam has said he wants to tell his story to a public hearing so that there will be renewed international attention of the case and the ultimate indictment of the Iranian regime.

Since Kazemi's death, senior Iranian officials have at times acknowledged that she died in the hands of state security officers. But the official position is that she fainted, weak from a hunger strike, and hit her head when she fell.

At first, the Iranian judiciary said she died of a stroke but after an inquiry, it was determined she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage.

The sole defendant in the case, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, was charged with "semi-premeditated murder." He was later acquitted in a Tehran court.

Despite continuing international and Canadian pressure, the case has not been reopened. Kazemi's son has openly expressed his frustration with the Canadian government's progress in bringing his mother's death to justice.

"I'm continuing what my mother has started when she stood up to the Iranian regime, by standing up, she stood up for rights, and I'm not going to stop until I have anything else than my rights," Hachemi said on Thursday.

He said he would continue to aggressively pursue this case until he achieves justice for his mother and called on the Canadian government to play a greater role.

The Canadian ambassador to Iran was withdrawn in July 2004 in protest of the regime's lack of action but a new envoy was named four months later.

With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press