Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali
Encyclopedia
Hujjat al-Islam Sadeq Givi aka Sadegh Khalkhali (July 27, 1926 – November 26, 2003) was a hardline Twelver Shi'a cleric of the Islamic Republic
of Iran who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice
of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution
" that earned him a reputation as Iran's "hanging judge
". A farmer's son born in Givi (Ardabil Province
, Iran
) http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-914881/Sadeq-Khalkhali in appearance Khalkhali was "a small, rotund man with a pointed beard, kindly smile, and a high-pitched giggle." He was married with a son.
after its suppression., but was not a well-known figure to the public prior to the Islamic Revolution
.
On February 24, 1979, however, Khalkhali was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to be the Sharia
ruler (حاکم شرع in Persian) or head the newly established Revolutionary Courts, and to make Islamic rulings. In the early days of the revolution he sentenced to death "hundreds of former government officials" on charges such as "spreading corruption on earth" and "warring against God." Most of the condemned did not have access to a lawyer or a jury.
Khalkhali is famous for ordering the executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida
, the Shah's long time prime minister, and Nematollah Nassiri
, a former head of SAVAK
. According to one report, after sentencing Hoveida to death
Another version of the story has Khalkhali saying that while presiding over Hoveida's execution he made sure communication links between Qasr Prison and the outside world were severed, "to prevent any last-minute intercession on his behalf by Mehdi Bazargan, the provisional prime minister."
By trying Hoveida, Khalkhali effectively undermined the position of the provisional prime minister of the Islamic Revolution, the moderate Mehdi Bazargan, who disapproved of the Islamic Revolutionary Court
and sought to establish the Revolution's reputation for justice and moderation.
Khalkhali was known for his antipathy towards pre-Islamic Iran. In 1979 he wrote a book "branding king Cyrus the Great
a tyrant, a liar, and a homosexual" and "called for the destruction of the Cyrus tomb and remains of the two-thousand-year-old Persian palace in Shiraz
, Fars Province, the Persepolis
." According an interview by Elaine Sciolino of Shiraz-based Ayatollah Majdeddin Mahallati, Khalkhali came to Persepolis with "a band of thugs" and gave an angry speech demanding that "the faithful torch the silk-lined tent city and the grandstand that the Shah had built," but was driven off by stone-throwing local residents.
Following the Iranian Revolution
in 1979, Reza Shah's mausoleum
was destroyed under the direction of Ayatollah
Sadeq Khalkhali, which was sanctioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
.
At the height of the Iran hostage crisis
in 1980 following the failure of the American rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw
and crash of U.S.
helicopters killing their crews, Khalkhali appeared on television
"ordering the bags containing the dismembered limbs of the dead servicemen to be split open so that the blackened remains could be picked over and photographed," to the anger of American viewers.
Khalkhali later investigated and ordered the execution of many activists for federalism in Kurdistan and Turkmen Sahra
, At the height of its activity Khalkhali's revolutionary court sentenced to death "up to 60 Kurds a day." Following that, in August 1980 he was asked by President Banisadr to take charge of trying and sentencing drug dealers, and sentenced hundreds to death. Ironically, one of the complaints of the revolution's leader and Khalkhali's superior, the Ayatollah Khomeini against the regime they had overthrown was that the Shah's far more limited number of executions of drug traffickers had been `inhuman.`
In December 1980 his influence waned when he was forced to resign from the revolutionary courts because of his failure to account for $14 million seized through drug raids, confiscations, and fines," although some believe this as much the doing of President Bani-Sadr and the powerful head of the Islamic Republic Party Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti
"working behind the scenes" to remove a source of bad publicity for the revolution, as a matter of outright corruption.
In an interview, Khalkhali personally confirmed ordering more than 100 executions, although many sources believe that by the time of his death he had sent 8,000 men and women to their deaths. In some cases he was the executioner, where he executed his victims using machine guns. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro
he is quoted as saying, "If my victims were to come back on earth, I would execute them again, without exceptions."
Khalkhali was elected as representative for Qom
in Islamic Consultative Assembly
(Iranian parliament) for two terms, serving for "more than a decade." In 1992, however, he was one of 39 incumbents from the Third Majles and 1000 or so candidates rejected that winter and spring by the Council of Guardians, which vets candidates. The reason given was a failure to show a `practical commitment to Islam and to the Islamic government,` but it was thought by some to be a purge of radical critics of the conservatives in power. Controversially, he was one of the reformists and supporters of president Khatami's movement.
He died in 2003, at the age of 77, of cancer and heart disease.
interviews Khalkhali in two of his better-known books
Islamic republic
Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including the Islamic Republics of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian...
of Iran who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice
Chief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution
Summary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
" that earned him a reputation as Iran's "hanging judge
Hanging Judge
"Hanging judge" is an unofficial term for a judge who has gained renown for punishment by sentencing convicted criminals to death by hanging.More broadly, the term is applied to judges who have gained a reputation for imposing unusually harsh sentences, even in jurisdictions where the death penalty...
". A farmer's son born in Givi (Ardabil Province
Ardabil Province
Ardabil Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the north west of the country, bordering the Republic of Azerbaijan and the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Zanjan, and Gilan. Its centre is the city of Ardabil...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
) http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-914881/Sadeq-Khalkhali in appearance Khalkhali was "a small, rotund man with a pointed beard, kindly smile, and a high-pitched giggle." He was married with a son.
Revolutionary and Islamic governmental activities
Khalkhali is known to have been one of Khomeini's circle of disciples as far back as 1955 and is reported to have reconstructed the former secret society of Islamic assassins known as the Fadayan-e IslamFadayan-e Islam
Fadā'iyān-e Islam , was an Iranian Islamic fundamentalist secret society founded in 1946, by a 21 year-old theology student named Navvab Safavi. Safavi sought to purify Islam in Iran by ridding it of `corrupting individuals` by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading...
after its suppression., but was not a well-known figure to the public prior to the Islamic Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
.
On February 24, 1979, however, Khalkhali was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to be the Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
ruler (حاکم شرع in Persian) or head the newly established Revolutionary Courts, and to make Islamic rulings. In the early days of the revolution he sentenced to death "hundreds of former government officials" on charges such as "spreading corruption on earth" and "warring against God." Most of the condemned did not have access to a lawyer or a jury.
Khalkhali is famous for ordering the executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida
Amir Abbas Hoveida
Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, was an Iranian economist and politician who served as Prime Minister of Iran from January 27, 1965 to August 7, 1977. He was prime minister for 13 years and is the longest serving prime minister in Iran's history. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance...
, the Shah's long time prime minister, and Nematollah Nassiri
Nematollah Nassiri
General Nematollah Nassiri , was the director of SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency during the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah. A personal friend of the Shah, he had gained notoriety for removing democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power...
, a former head of SAVAK
SAVAK
SAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور...
. According to one report, after sentencing Hoveida to death
pleas for clemency poured in from all over the world and it was said that Khalkhali was told by telephone to stay the execution. Khalkhali replied that he would go and see what was happening. He then went to Hoveida and either shot him himself or instructed a minion to do the deed. "I'm sorry," he told the person at the other end of the telephone, "the sentence has already been carried out."
Another version of the story has Khalkhali saying that while presiding over Hoveida's execution he made sure communication links between Qasr Prison and the outside world were severed, "to prevent any last-minute intercession on his behalf by Mehdi Bazargan, the provisional prime minister."
By trying Hoveida, Khalkhali effectively undermined the position of the provisional prime minister of the Islamic Revolution, the moderate Mehdi Bazargan, who disapproved of the Islamic Revolutionary Court
Islamic Revolutionary Court
Islamic Revolutionary Court is a special court in the Islamic Republic of Iran designed to try those suspected of smuggling, blaspheming, inticing violence or trying to overthrow the Iranian government...
and sought to establish the Revolution's reputation for justice and moderation.
Khalkhali was known for his antipathy towards pre-Islamic Iran. In 1979 he wrote a book "branding king Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
a tyrant, a liar, and a homosexual" and "called for the destruction of the Cyrus tomb and remains of the two-thousand-year-old Persian palace in Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
, Fars Province, the Persepolis
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
." According an interview by Elaine Sciolino of Shiraz-based Ayatollah Majdeddin Mahallati, Khalkhali came to Persepolis with "a band of thugs" and gave an angry speech demanding that "the faithful torch the silk-lined tent city and the grandstand that the Shah had built," but was driven off by stone-throwing local residents.
Following the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
in 1979, Reza Shah's mausoleum
Reza Shah's mausoleum
Reza Shah's Mausoleum, located in Ray south of Tehran, was the burial ground of Reza Shah, the penultimate king of Iran.In the early days of the Iranian Revolution in May 1979, Reza Shah's mausoleum was destroyed in an act of desecration of the dead and gross vandalism by bulldozers and dynamite...
was destroyed under the direction of Ayatollah
Ayatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Sadeq Khalkhali, which was sanctioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
.
At the height of the Iran hostage crisis
Iran hostage crisis
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
in 1980 following the failure of the American rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw was an American military operation ordered by President Jimmy Carter to attempt to put an end to the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 Americans held captive at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on 24 April 1980...
and crash of U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
helicopters killing their crews, Khalkhali appeared on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
"ordering the bags containing the dismembered limbs of the dead servicemen to be split open so that the blackened remains could be picked over and photographed," to the anger of American viewers.
Khalkhali later investigated and ordered the execution of many activists for federalism in Kurdistan and Turkmen Sahra
Turkmen Sahra
Turkmen Sahra that means Plain of Turkmens, is a region in the northeast of Iran near the Caspian Sea, bordering Turkmenistan, the majority of whose inhabitants are ethnic Turkmen. The biggest city is Gorgan which is dominated by Persian inhabitants though in recent years there has been...
, At the height of its activity Khalkhali's revolutionary court sentenced to death "up to 60 Kurds a day." Following that, in August 1980 he was asked by President Banisadr to take charge of trying and sentencing drug dealers, and sentenced hundreds to death. Ironically, one of the complaints of the revolution's leader and Khalkhali's superior, the Ayatollah Khomeini against the regime they had overthrown was that the Shah's far more limited number of executions of drug traffickers had been `inhuman.`
In December 1980 his influence waned when he was forced to resign from the revolutionary courts because of his failure to account for $14 million seized through drug raids, confiscations, and fines," although some believe this as much the doing of President Bani-Sadr and the powerful head of the Islamic Republic Party Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti
Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti
Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti , was an Iranian scholar, writer, jurist and one of the main architects of the constitution of the Islamic Republic in Iran. He was the secretary-general of the Islamic Republic Party, and the head of Iran's judicial system...
"working behind the scenes" to remove a source of bad publicity for the revolution, as a matter of outright corruption.
In an interview, Khalkhali personally confirmed ordering more than 100 executions, although many sources believe that by the time of his death he had sent 8,000 men and women to their deaths. In some cases he was the executioner, where he executed his victims using machine guns. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
he is quoted as saying, "If my victims were to come back on earth, I would execute them again, without exceptions."
Khalkhali was elected as representative for Qom
Qom
Qom is a city in Iran. It lies by road southwest of Tehran and is the capital of Qom Province. At the 2006 census, its population was 957,496, in 241,827 families. It is situated on the banks of the Qom River....
in Islamic Consultative Assembly
Majlis of Iran
The National Consultative Assembly of Iran , also called The Iranian Parliament or People's House, is the national legislative body of Iran...
(Iranian parliament) for two terms, serving for "more than a decade." In 1992, however, he was one of 39 incumbents from the Third Majles and 1000 or so candidates rejected that winter and spring by the Council of Guardians, which vets candidates. The reason given was a failure to show a `practical commitment to Islam and to the Islamic government,` but it was thought by some to be a purge of radical critics of the conservatives in power. Controversially, he was one of the reformists and supporters of president Khatami's movement.
Qom seminary
Khalkhali retired to Qom, where he taught Islamic seminarians.He died in 2003, at the age of 77, of cancer and heart disease.
See also
- History of fundamentalist Islam in IranHistory of fundamentalist Islam in IranThe history of fundamentalist Islam in Iran covers the history of Islamic revivalism and the rise of political Islam in modern Iran. Today, there are basically three types of Islam in Iran: traditionalism, modernism, and a variety of forms of revivalism usually brought together as fundamentalism...
- Mostafa Pour-MohammadiMostafa Pour-MohammadiHojatoll-Islam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi is a politician in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, he was appointed as the new interior minister of the country by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the approval of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...
- Majead AnsariMajead AnsariMajead Ansari , also spelled Majid Ansari is an Iranian politician and cleric....
- Reza Shah's mausoleumReza Shah's mausoleumReza Shah's Mausoleum, located in Ray south of Tehran, was the burial ground of Reza Shah, the penultimate king of Iran.In the early days of the Iranian Revolution in May 1979, Reza Shah's mausoleum was destroyed in an act of desecration of the dead and gross vandalism by bulldozers and dynamite...
Further reading
V. S. NaipaulV. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad "V. S." Naipaul, TC is a Nobel prize-winning Indo-Trinidadian-British writer who is known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism...
interviews Khalkhali in two of his better-known books
- Among the Believers: An Islamic JourneyAmong the Believers: An Islamic JourneyAmong the Believers: An Islamic Journey is a book by the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.Published in 1981, the book was based on a six month journey across the Asian continent. V.S. Naipaul explores the culture and the explosive situation in countries where Islamic fundamentalism was growing...
(1981) ISBN 978-0-394-71195-9 - Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted PeoplesBeyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted PeoplesBeyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples is a non-fiction book by V. S. Naipaul published by Vintage Books in 1998. It was written as a sequel to Naipaul's Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey ....
(1998) [part II, chapter 7] ISBN 978-0-316-64361-0
External links
- Obituary from The EconomistThe EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
- Obituary from telegraph.co.ukThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- Obituary from Guardian UnlimitedGuardian Unlimitedguardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Georgina Henry is the editor...
(gives his full name as Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali) - Qaddafi Meets an Ayatollah January 2, 1992