Actor Hassan Tantai, who plays a starring role in the Iranian film Kandahar, is suspected to be a fugitive wanted by the FBI for the 1980 murder of former Iranian diplomat, according to The Washington Times.
The film’s credits identify the amateur actor as the man playing an American-born physician who helps the lead female character on a mission of mercy hindered by the Taliban.
But evidence, the daily said, contained in Tantai’s own extensive interview with an Iranian film critic, as well as his physical appearance and the sound of his English-speaking voice in the movie, suggests striking similarities to confessed killer Daoud Salahuddin.
Salahuddin, born in North Carolina as David Theodore Belfield, is a fugitive wanted by the FBI and Montgomery County police for the doorstep murder July 22, 1980, of former Iranian diplomat Ali Akbar Tabatabai.
Ali Akbar Tabatabai, former counselor at the Iranian Embassy in Washington, was an unrelenting critic of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution in Iran.
The slain diplomat’s twin brother, M.R. Tabatabai, 71, last week told The Washington Times he had "no doubt" that Tantai and Southern Baptist-turned-Islamic terrorist Salahuddin were one and the same.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who wrote and directed Kandahar, told The Times that he met the man who called himself Hassan Tantai working as a doctor a year ago, after he began filming scenes in a village on the Iran-Afghanistan border.
When informed by The Times of Tabatabai's accusations, Robin Lim, president of New York-based Avatar Films, distributor of Kandahar, said that he was "quite alarmed." But, he said, the accusations would not interfere with plans to promote Kandahar for wider release.
Makhmalbaf recognized that "this guy obviously had a past," but "felt that delving into his past would serve no purpose for the film," said Lim.
Makhmalbaf, Lim and others connected with Kandahar told The Times they did not know whether Hassan Tantai and Daoud Salahuddin were the same man.
Kandahar tells the story of a young woman named Nafas, an Afghan-born journalist living in Canada, who journeys back to her birthplace. Her mission is to try to save her sister, who has become depressed by Taliban oppression and threatens suicide.
Along the way, Nafas, played by Afghan-born Canadian journalist Nelofer Pazira, is helped by Tantai's character, Tabib Sahib. The Sahib character provides medical services to Afghans and says he has journeyed to Iran and Afghanistan in search of God.
The 85-minute semi-documentary won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and also played at the prestigious Toronto and Salonika film festivals.
Kandahar, which has drawn big crowds for a foreign "art house" film, opened in New York on Friday to rave reviews. President Bush requested a screening of the movie, which was scheduled to open in cities across the United States in coming weeks. No venue or exact date for showing in Washington has been announced – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
