Hassan Pakravan

General Hassan Pakravan

Hassan Pakravan (born August 4, 1911 , † April 11, 1979 ) was an Iranian general, intelligence chief of the SAVAK from 1961 to 1965 and Iranian ambassador to Pakistan and France . Hassan Pakravan was married to the doctor Fatemeh Farifteh. The marriage had four children.

Life

Hassan Pakravan was born in Tehran on August 4, 1911. His mother, Emineh, was the daughter of a Persian aristocrat who was married to an Austrian. His father, Fatholak Khan, a diplomat, also came from a prominent Iranian family. Since his father was employed as a diplomat in the Iranian consulate in Alexandria (Egypt), Hassan first went to the French high school in Alexandria. In 1923 the parents divorced. Emineh moved to Belgium with her two children . Hassan graduated from high school in Belgium and then studied engineering at the University of Liège . After graduating, Hassan Pakravan went to France , where he completed military training at the École Des Caissons d'Artillerie in Fontainebleau .

Military, secret service and politics

In 1933 Hassan Pakravan returned to Iran and took on a teaching position at the military academy. A little later his mother and sister followed him to Tehran.

From 1949 to 1951 Pakravan was a military attaché in Pakistan . Back in Iran, Hassan Pakravan became head of the Army Intelligence Service G2 ( Rokne do ), named after the model of the French Deuxième Bureau . The G2 secret service, known for its tough crackdown on the opposition, was the predecessor organization of SAVAK , which was founded in 1957 . Pakravan's term of office coincided with that of Prime Minister Mossadegh , and it was General Pakravan who briefed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on all happenings in the opposition, particularly in the communist Tudeh party .

At the height of the conflict between the Shah and Mossadegh, Hassan Pakravan asked to be replaced as head of the G2 in 1953. He went to France as a deputy military attaché and later to India as a military attaché . Pakravan later stated that out of respect for the constitution, he did not want to be drawn into the coup against Mossadegh and that he had therefore gone to France.

In 1957 he was ordered back to Iran. American and British military advisors had arrived in Tehran and were supporting the Iranian military in setting up a new secret service. General Teymur Bachtiar was installed as head of the new secret service SAVAK ( Saseman Amniat va Etelaat Keschwar , Organization for Information and Protection of the Country ) and General Hassan Pakravan became his deputy. In 1961, after Teymur Bachtiar's dismissal, he succeeded him as head of the secret service. In the United States , John F. Kennedy was elected President, and Mohammad Reza Shah wanted to achieve a political opening in Iran. Because of this, Hassan Pakravan seemed like the right man for the post.

One of his first decisions was to refrain from any form of torture during interrogation. In addition, Hassan Pakravan completely changed the way the SAVAK worked. It was Hassan Pakravan who advocated that Khomeini should not be executed after his arrest and conviction in connection with the violent June demonstrations in 1963, but instead be released from prison in 1964 and deported into exile in Turkey and later to Iraq. Hassan Pakravan told the Shah that it was necessary to give the clergy more time to adapt to the reforms of the White Revolution to get used to, and that it was better to dismiss Khomeini from prison, instead of the execution of the condemned man a martyr to do. While in custody, Khomeini allegedly promised Hassan Pakravan to stay out of politics in the future. Khomeini merely said: "We never interfere in politics as you define it." This statement left enough room for interpretation. It was soon to be seen that Khomeini had no intention of staying out of politics.

On January 22, 1965, a few days before the anniversary of the White Revolution , the reform program of Mohammad Reza Shah, which led to the violent demonstrations organized by the clergy in 1963, Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour was shot by a member of Fedayeen-e Islam . Mansour is said to have been sentenced to death by a secret Islamic court held by Morteza Motahhari and Mohammad Beheschti after Khomeini was expelled from the country and sent into exile in Iraq. The assassin, Mohammad Bokharai, and his accomplices Morteza Niknejad, Ali Andarzgu and Reza Saffar Harandi were arrested, sentenced to death and executed. Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni , who later became President of the Islamic Republic of Iran , admitted after the Islamic Revolution that he and others had ordered the murder of Mansour. He got hold of the pistol that was used in the Mansour murder. To prove it, he presented the pistol he had taken as a personal memento. Asadollah Badamchian said of the assassination attempt on Mansour and Mohammad Reza Shah on April 10, 1965:

“In the case of the revolutionary attacks on the Shah or Mansour, we first asked the ulama for the verdict . An inquiry was made with the Imam (Khomeini) before he was sent into exile, but he stated that the time was not yet ripe. He had asked Ayatollah Beheschti and Motahhari to speak for him in his absence. You were asked and you confirmed the judgment. "

After Prime Minister Mansour's assassination, it became clear that Hassan Pakravan's idea of ​​running the SAVAK according to the principles of liberal rule of law had failed. General Nematollah Nassiri became the new head of the SAVAK. The replacement of Pakravan, according to Gérard de Villiers , meant the replacement of an educated intellectual by a man with guts. General Nassiri then made the SAVAK the organization of repression, as it was described in many reports of the opposition.

Hassan Pakravan was first Minister of Information and from 1966 to 1973 ambassador to Pakistan and France. After reaching retirement age, Hassan Pakravan wanted to stay in Paris and lead the peaceful life of a pensioner with his family. But he went back to Iran to serve as a senior advisor at the court ministry from 1974. When it became clear that the constitutional monarchy in Iran was getting into political difficulties, Hassan Pakravan was one of the Shah's closest advisers. When the Shah left Iran in January 1979, Hassan Pakravan stayed in Tehran and made sure that the court officials continued to be paid and that "operations continued as long as possible."

After Khomeini's return to Iran on February 1, 1979, it was only until February 16, 1979 that Hassan Pakravan was arrested. During the interrogations, Hassan Pakravan must have impressed judge Sadegh Chalkhali . In any case, Khalkhali, who was known for his brutality, gave the family of Hassan Pakravan hopes that Pakravan would soon be released. Hassan Pakravan was also certain that Khomeini would not have him executed, since it was he who had saved Khomeini from the firing squad after his conviction in 1964. On April 11, 1979, General Hassan Pakravan was executed at 2 a.m. A photo of the slain Hassan Pakravan was published in the daily Keyhan newspaper with the caption: "The butcher, on whose hands the blood of thousands of Iranians is clinging."

Relationship with Ruhollah Khomeini

The decision to release Khomeini was taken by the Shah himself on the advice of Hassan Pakravan. Since, for legal reasons , the death sentence could not simply be converted into a release, but rather into a long prison sentence, Hassan Pakravan suggested, as Fatemeh Pakravan stated in her memoirs in 1998, that the then Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari should unceremoniously convert Khomeini to Marjah resp. To declare Ayatollah and thereby save him from the threat of execution . According to the constitution, an ayatollah could not be sentenced to death. Usually, the appointment as Ayatollah is preceded by many years of teaching and publication. And since Khomeini could not prove that, it was initially questionable whether he could even have proven the qualification for the appointment as Ayatollah. But such academic considerations were sacrificed for reasons of state in this case . Khomeini was named ayatollah, the court overturned the death sentence, and Khomeini was released from prison and deported abroad in 1964.

literature

• Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, pp. 474-482.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ehsan Naraghi: From Palace to Prison. IBTauris, 1994, p. 177.
2. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians, Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 478.
3. ↑ "SHRBaresi va Tahile Nehzate Imam Khomeini, p 575. Quoted by Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians.Syracuse University Press, 2008, pp 479th
4. ↑ Amir Taheri: The Spirit of Allah, 1985, p. 156.
5. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 377.
6. ^ Gérard de Villiers: The Shah. 1976. page 396
7. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians, Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 482.
8. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.