Sadegh Ghotbzadeh

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Sadegh Ghotbzadeh (Persian: صادق قطب‌زاده , b. 1936 - d. September 15, 1982) was a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini during his 1978 exile in France, and Iranian Foreign Minister (November 30, 1979–August, 1980) during Iran hostage crisis following the Iranian Revolution. In 1982 he was executed for allegedly plotting the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

Ghotbzadeh was active in the Student Confederation of Iran. He attended Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service 1959-1963, but was dismissed before graduating due to his skipping studies and exams to lead protests against the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, including storming a posh party put on by the Iranian Ambassador to the United States, the son-in-law of the Shah.[citation needed]

He was a supporter of the National Front of Iran and the Freedom Movement of Iran and was a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini when Khomeini was in exile in France. He accompanied Khomeini on his travel back to Iran on February 1, 1979. After the Islamic Revolutionaries took power, Ghotbzadeh was appointed as managing director of National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) and tried to overhaul it to be in line with Islamic teachings, purging royalist, women, and leftists.[1] This was criticised by a group of Iranian intellectuals and also the Interim Government. He was appointed as Foreign Minister when Abolhassan Banisadr resigned as acting Foreign Minister amid heated disputes on the fate of the American hostages. He was "quoted by Agence France Presse saying that he had information that presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was `trying to block a solution` to the hostage crisis. ... Two friends of Ghotbzadeh who spoke to him frequently during this period said that he insisted repeatedly that the Republicans were in contact with elements in Iran to try to block a hostage release." [1] He later resigned when his diplomatic approach to resolve the crisis ended in a deadlock.

In April 1982 and after Iran-Contra scandal, he was arrested along with a group of army officers and clerics (including son-in-law of religious leader Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari), all accused of plotting the assassination of Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He denied the accusations but confirmed the existence of a plot to change the government, then led by Ali Khamenei as President. Further rumors include the story that Ayatollah Khomeini initially did not want to execute Ghotbzadeh; he was persuaded to do so after hearing a tape of Ghotbzadeh in prison agreeing to pay money and provide contact information of his allies in France in exchange for his freedom.[citation needed] Ghotbzadeh supposedly told this to a fellow prisoner specifically hired to entrap him.[citation needed] The veracity of these rumors is unknown.

At an April 1982 "press conference", hojjat al-Islam Mohammad Reyshahri, the chief judge of the newly created Military Revolutionary Tribunal, explained the plot with "an elaborate chart full of boxes and arrows linking Qotbzadeh and the royalist officers, on one side, to `the feudalists, the leftist mini-groups, and the phony clerics` and other other side, to the `National Front, Israel, the Pahlavis and the Socialist International.` The last four were linked to the CIA."[2]

Ghotbzadeh was shot by a firing squad after a 26-day trial before the Military Revolutionary Tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, (University of California Press, 1999), p.156
  2. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, (University of California Press, 1999), p.156. Quotes from "Plots are Revealed," Ettela'at, 20 April 1982
  3. ^ TIME.com. "Revolution Devouring Its Own", Sep. 27, 1982 By GEORGE RUSSELL

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Preceded by
Abolhassan Banisadr		 Foreign minister of Iran
November 1979-August 1980		 Succeeded by
Mohammad Karim Khodapanahi