UK travel writer found dead; critiqued Iran, opposed Assad

BUCHAREST, Romania — The death of a British travel writer, who wrote about and was deported from Iran and backed opponents of President Bashar Assad in Syria, has been classified as suspicious by Romanian police, almost a month after his decomposing body was found in his Bucharest apartment.

Police spokeswoman Bogdan Ghebaur said Friday the case of 47-year old David St. Vincent has been handed to the Bucharest prosecutors’ office. His body was discovered on Jan. 12 and police initially suspected he had died of natural causes.

St. Vincent wrote about Romania, Iran and Pakistan. He was deported from Iran in 1992 while researching for his Lonely Planet book.

He had lived in Romania for many years and was a founder of Accept, a group that was instrumental in the 2001 decriminalization of homosexuality. He was an active supporter of Syrians opposing Assad, and kept close contact with them.

“He was a perfectly British eccentric in the best possible way, like a character in an Evelyn Waugh or Graham Greene novel,” said Eric Gilder, a friend and English teacher in Papua New Guinea. “He will be sorely missed.”

His 1990s Lonely Planet tourist guide to Iran has mixed reviews on Amazon, with some calling it wonderful, helpful and “a gem,” but others branding it poorly researched, mean-spirited and narrow-minded.

Published excerpts suggest a light tone of writing that is far from enthusiastic about the regime: “The Iranian dress code is not only inspired by Qoranic commands, but also rigidly reinforced by law, so flouting the rules is more than just bad manners,” St. Vincent writes in a section on “Dress,” for instance. “Revolutionary Guards have been known to go around on motorcycles during Ramadan toting cans of paint to spray on the bare arms of anyone rash enough to be caught wearing a T-shirt in public. In May 1990 it was announced that computer records would be kept of those caught breaking the dress code — a fine example of 20th century technology serving 6th century purposes…”

“Iran must have one of the highest proportion of men with beards or moustaches of any country in the world,” St. Vincent wrote later in the same section, “although it is often difficult to distinguish between an attempt at a full beard and what is merely a bad shave…

“For reasons beyond my logic,” he goes on, “ties have been officially condemned as an unwelcome and un-Islamic symbol of Western cultural imperialism, whereas jeans are almost universally acceptable. Clothes loosely based on Western fashions are the rule for Iranian males, except among the mullocracy and some of the tribal or ethnic minorities. They are also surprisingly common on younger Iranian women, albeit hidden under the hejab. Many of the clothes sold in Iran’s boutiques are cheap and nasty imitations of outdated Western models.”

St. Vincent is survived by a brother. A funeral will be held in Bucharest on Feb. 18.