Kandahar film's murder mystery

The film received critical acclaim from across the world

When the Iranian film Kandahar was released worldwide earlier this year, critics lauded its director and largely amateur cast for their depiction of life in Afghanistan under the Taleban.

Telling the story of a Canadian-Afghan woman who enters Afghanistan to save her suicidal sister, the film became so well known even US President George W Bush expressed his desire to see it.

However, it is now being claimed that one of the film's amateur actors is in fact the prime suspect in a political assassination that took place more than 20 years ago.

US law officials are certain that Hassan Tantai is the man responsible for the murder

In the film, the role of a doctor is played by Hassan Tantai, described on the film's official website as a "Muslim of African-American descent" who travelled from the US in 1979 to fight alongside Afghans against Russian invaders.

American news reports say that Mr Tantai is in fact American-born David Belfield, under indictment in the US for the murder of a former Iranian diplomat.

The crime took place in 1980 in Bethesda, Maryland, when Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a fierce critic of the fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in Iran, was gunned down at close range outside his home by a man dressed in a postman's uniform.

Law enforcement officials say the man in the uniform was David Belfield.

"We are very comfortable that the man who appears in this film is indeed David Belfield," Maryland state attorney for Montgomery County Doug Gansler told ABC News.

"He's an assassin and he's a terrorist."

Mr Belfield was reportedly at the time a student who had recently converted to Islam and adopted the Muslim name Daoud Salhuddin.

Law enforcement officials said that following the murder he fled through Canada and Switzerland before entering Iran, where he has apparently lived ever since.

'Confession'

In 1995 Mr Belfield appeared to admit in an interview with ABC News that he had shot Tabatabai.

I never ask those who act in my films what they have done before, nor do I follow what they do after I finish shooting my film

Film director Mohsen Makhmabalaf

"Oh, I knew I'd hit him," he said.

"But God has created something called shock. He was in it. He didn't feel anything."

However it seems that Mr Belfield may be known by several other names, as US magazine Time said that he is also known as Hassan Abdul Rahman, a former editor of the state-sponsored English-language newspaper Iran Daily.

Time said he allegedly fought with the mujahideen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Denial

New York-based Avatar Films, who are distributing the film throughout the US, issued a statement by the film's director Mohsen Makhmabalaf, denying knowledge of Belfield's past.

"I have always chosen my actors from crowded streets and barren deserts," he said.

"I never ask those who act in my films what they have done before, nor do I follow what they do after I finish shooting my film."

Despite the revelation, It seems unlikely, however, that Mr Belfield will come to trial for the killing.

Observers say Iran would be reluctant to hand over a man suspected of committing a killing for the Khomeini regime.