The body of Ali Ajami, an Iranian human rights activist, was discovered in McGovern Lake at Hermann Park, Houston, Texas, on Wednesday. The cause of death remains unknown.
Houston Police on Wednesday started an investigation into the death of a deceased male found in a pond at Hermann Park but said no other information was available yet.
Iranian social media users have reported that the body belonged to thirty-seven-year-old Iranian human rights activist Ali Ajami.
According to local media, Houston police are waiting for an autopsy of the body of the well-dressed male that was discovered by a member of public in the pond. The man may have been in the water for some time, police who are treating the case as a homicide said.
Ali Ajami who was a student of law at Tehran University was arrested in 2009 in his home village in Sabzever in eastern Iran in the aftermath of a disputed election that reinstated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president.
A Revolutionary Court sentenced Mr. Ajami to two years in prison on charges of collusion and propaganda against the Islamic Republic and acting against national security.
Mr. Ajami was the editor of a left-leaning student publication before his arrest and imprisonment and was consequently expelled from the university only months before his graduation.
Sometime after being freed from prison Mr. Ajami left the country for Turkey and from there, to the United States where he remained and worked as a journalist and human rights activist until his death.
Mr. Ajami was an editor of the Iranian Human Rights News Agency (HRANA) which monitors human rights in Iran.