Mehdi Hashemi
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Mehdi Hashemi (1944 – 28 September 1987) was an Iranian
Shia Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...
cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
who after the 1979
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...
became a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. He was
defrocked Defrocking, unfrocking, degradation, or laicization of clergy is the removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. It may be grounded on criminal convictions, disciplinary problems, or disagreements over doctrine or ...
by the Special Clerical Court and executed by the Islamic Republic in 1987. Officially he was guilty of sedition, murder, and related charges, but others suspect his true crime was opposition to the regime's secret dealings with the United States within the
Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair (; ), also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitat ...
.


Background

Hashemi was born in Qahderijan, near
Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...
, in 1944 to a well-established clerical family. Hashemi was the brother of Hadi Hashemi, Ayatollah Montazeri's son-in-law. In addition, he was a close confidant of Ayatollah Montazeri's son,
Mohammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Mose ...
. Hashemi first became known to the Iranian public during the closing days of the
Pahlavi dynasty The Pahlavi dynasty () is an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian royal dynasty that was the Pahlavi Iran, last to rule Iran before the country's monarchy was abolished by the Iranian Revolution in 1979. It was founded in 1925 by Reza Shah, Reza S ...
in 1977 when SAVAK arrested him for the vigilante murder of "prostitutes, homosexuals, and drug traffickers". He was also accused of murdering a conservative cleric who had publicly insulted cleric
Khomeini Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (17 May 1900 or 24 September 19023 June 1989) was an Iranian revolutionary, politician, political theorist, and religious leader. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian ...
, the
Grand Ayatollah Marja (; plural ''marājiʿ''; ) is a title given to the highest level of Twelver Shia religious cleric, with the authority given by a hawzah (a seminary where Shi'a Muslim scholars are educated) to make legal decisions within the confines of Sh ...
. During this time he was supported by opponents of Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980) was the last List of monarchs of Iran, Shah of Iran, ruling from 1941 to 1979. He succeeded his father Reza Shah and ruled the Imperial State of Iran until he was overthrown by the ...
as an innocent victim framed by SAVAK, in an attempt "to tarnish the reputation of the clerical establishment." Upon his release from prison by the successor security agency SAVAMA, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Hashemi was celebrated as a "religious hero." He remained associated with Ayatollah Montazeri, and after the Ayatollah's son and his friend, Mohammad, died in the bombing of the
Islamic Republican Party The Islamic Republican Party (IRP; , also translated Islamic Republic Party) was formed in 1979 to assist the Iranian Revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini in their goal to establish theocracy in Iran. It was disbanded in 1987 due to internal confl ...
headquarters in 1981, Mehdi Hashemi took control of Montazeri's armed followers.Iran Report
9 August 1999, ''Global Security'' 2 (32).
He followed Montazeri's visions on the interpretation and implementation of the Islamic revolution during a time of contradictory and increasingly fractious understandings within the ruling elite which sought to circumscribe Montazeri's influence in Lebanon and tighten the Iranian government's grip on its Lebanese Shi'a clients. This led to factional conflicts, as different Iranian factions promoted
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
or Amal, another Shi'a group associated with the Lebanese government. According to several sources, Hashemi came to head the liberation movements unit in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, dealing with other minority Shi'a communities including Lebanon's Hezbollah, then fighting the Israeli invasion, and
Afghan mujahideen The Afghan ''mujahideen'' (; ; ) were Islamist militant groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent Afghan Civil War (1989–1992), First Afghan Ci ...
units, then fighting the
Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...
. Some sources say Hashemi ran an organization out of Montazeri's office which sought to export the Islamic revolution to other Shi'a areas; other sources say he was in charge of the "Bureau of Assistance to the Islamic Movements in the World", which was tasked with spreading the Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East.


Opposition to arms dealing with the US

Hashemi opposed the Iranian government's efforts to obtain scarce weapons and spares for the
Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, unti ...
from the United States and Israel, and provide assistance to the
Reagan Administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...
in releasing US citizens held hostage by Hezbollah in Lebanon. He leaked news of the dealings to the Lebanese news magazine ''
Ash-Shiraa ''Ash-Shiraa'' (or ''Al-Shiraa'') (Arabic: الشراع, ''The Sail'' in English) is an Arabic weekly magazine published in Lebanon. The magazine is one of the oldest publications in the country. History and profile ''Ash-Shira'' was launched i ...
''. The appearance of the story in the magazine's 3 November 1986 issue triggered a scandal in both Iran and the United States, as American government policy forbade selling weapons to Iran, and in Iran, America was condemned as "the Great Satan" and Israel as the "Little Satan". The dealings were known in the Western world initially as the "Irangate" "arms for hostages" scandal, or with the later diversion of funds, as the Iran-Contra Affair.


Arrest

After Hashemi's followers kidnapped a Syrian official in Tehran in October 1986, and shortly before the public exposure of the Irangate scandal, the Iranian government announced Hashemi had been arrested for treason along with 40 associates including his brother Hadi Hashemi. He was stripped of his
Hujjat al-Islam Hujjat al-Islam (, ) is an Islamic honorific title which translates in English to "authority on Islam" or "proof of Islam". The title "Hujjat al-Islam" is given to scholars with a high level of Islamic expertise and Islamic theology. Essentiall ...
title. His prosecution was handled by the
Mohammad Reyshahri Mohammad Reyshahri (), also known as Mohammad Mohammadi-Nik (29 October 1946 – 21 March 2022), was an Iranian politician, cleric, judge and religious scholar, who notably served as Chief Judge of the Revolutionary Military Tribunal (1979–1984 ...
, the former judge of the military tribunals who had recently been appointed minister of intelligence. According to Reysharhri's ''Political Memoirs'', Hashemi had powerful patrons, and after a month-long investigation, all the interrogators "had obtained was a taped interview in which the wise guy ehdi Hashemihad cleverly planted deviant ideas." However many more months of "thorough" interrogation of Hashemi including the application of 75 lashes for lying, and confrontation with "damaging confessions" from his 40 accomplices including his brother, produced more. After eight months and three different taped interviews Hashemi produced a taped confession aired on national television and headlined in newspapers as "I am Manifest Proof of Deviation." In it he confessed to "storing weapons, forging documents, criticizing the government, and sowing dissension among seminary students" and the revolutionary guards. Answering his own question of why he had done these things he explained that "carnal instincts" (''nafsaniyat'') had enticed him into "illicit relations" (''ravabat'') with SAVAK and Satan. In regards to his work in Montazeri's bureau of assistance to the Islamic movements, in the world he said:
I now realize that despicable sinners like myself had no business inside the heir-designate's office. I thank God that I have been removed from that office.
and pleaded with those who shared his "deviant ideas to return to the correct path..." Khomeini revived the Special Clerical Court in 1987, particularly to try Hashemi. In August 1987, after the confession was made public, Hashemi was tried by a Special Clerical Court on charges of "sowing corruption on earth, inciting fitna, succumbing to Satan, and desecrating the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution." Specifically, according to Reyshahri, that meant raiding and abetting the Mojahedin having an ongoing relationship with SAVAK, smuggling opium from Afghanistan and eliminating one of Montazeri's rivals by "inducing the spread of cancer through his body." At the same time, Reyshahri took the opportunity to deny the "insidious notion" that Hashemi was being punished because of his opposition to the McFarlane visit: "Those spreading this false rumor are helping the Black House he White House" Evidence that Hashemi was tortured to confess comes from an unsympathetic source. An anonymous Iranian author of a prison memoir described how all political prisoners in Iran at that time were under intense pressure to denounce their former political beliefs and comrades and as a result, they often "carefully scrutinized" the numerous video confessions of other prisoners prison officials played for the prisoners "to figure out which speakers had capitulated without much resistance and which had resisted to their utmost." Though mortal ideological enemies of Hashemi, when the author and her fellow leftists saw Hashemi on video, they "spontaneously said to themselves, 'He must have suffered unbearable tortures.'"


Execution

Hashemi was executed in Tehran in September 1987 before his verdict was announced. This was reportedly done to preclude the intervention on Hashemi's behalf by Montazeri, according to prosecutor Reyshahri.M. Reyshahri. (1990). ''Khaterat-e Siyasi'' (Political Memoirs), Tehran, p. 136 The execution was a blow to Ayatollah Montazeri, who had pleaded with
Ayatollah Khomeini Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (17 May 1900 or 24 September 19023 June 1989) was an Iranian revolutionary, politician, political theorist, and religious leader. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian ...
on Hashemi's behalf saying he had "known him inside out since our childhood. He is a devout Muslim, a militant revolutionary, and a great admirer of the Imam." On another note, one of Hashemi's few dozen co-defendants, Omid Najafabadi, who was a Revolutionary Court judge and the religious jurisprudent, or Hakem-e-Shaar, of Esfahan, was also executed; the others were all pardoned or given light sentences.


References


External links



video of trial after torture

video of trial after torture

video of trial after torture

videos of trial after torture {{DEFAULTSORT:Hashemi, Mehdi 20th-century executions by Iran 1944 births 1987 deaths Executed Iranian people Executed politicians Executed Shiite clerics Iran–Contra affair Islamic Republican Party politicians Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers Shia clerics from Isfahan Politicians from Isfahan Executed Iranian people by the Islamic Republic of Iran