Iran's 'Joan of Arc' pro-democracy martyr's murder described by doctor

London, June 29 (ANI): A doctor who tried to save the life of pro-democracy martyr Neda Agha-Soltan after she was fatally shot, has told the BBC that the militiaman who fired the bullet did not want to kill her.

Dr. Arash Hejazi said that while he was trying to save her life, he heard the militiaman who shot Soltan in the heart last week, saying: 'I didn't want to kill her!

Hejazi, who is seen in the now-famous video trying in vain to save the 26-year-old woman by compressing her terrible chest wound, risked his life to talk to the BBC.

He fled to Britain four days after the killing and thinks he may never be able to go home again.

"It was a tough decision to make to come out and talk about it. She was fighting for basic human rights. She wanted her vote to be counted. I don't want her blood to have been shed in vain. I am jeopardizing my situation because of the innocent look in her eyes before she died," said Hejazi, a doctor turned novelist and publisher.

He said he and some friends went to check out the June 20 protests in Tehran. He saw a phalanx of the brutal Basij militiamen riding motorcycles towards the crowd.

"Suddenly everything turned crazy. The police threw teargas and the motorcycles started rushing towards the crowd," he said.

"We heard a gunshot. Neda was standing [three feet] away from me. I didn't know her - she was just one other person in the crowd. I turned back and I saw blood gushing out of Neda's chest. She was in a shocked situation, just looking at her chest. She died in less than one minute."

There were reports last week that the crowd killed a militiaman believed to have shot Neda, but Hejazi said that wasn't so.

"People didn't know what do to do with him so they let him go. Some people said, 'Don't harm him. We are not killers like him,'" he said. (ANI)