22.02.2007

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Top Government Ministers

Assuming the presidency in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept all reformists from the government, replacing them with radical hardliners.  Of the latter, many had served in the regime’s intelligence units that have kidnapped, tortured, and killed countless Iranian civilians over the past two decades.

Three of the most influential positions in Iran’s government are now held by ministers with blood on their hands – Minister of Interior Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, Minister of Information Gholamhussein Mohseni Ezhei, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, Minister of Interior

Pour-Mohammadi was part of a three-person committee that ordered the systematic executions of 30,000 Iranian civilians in a murderous purge known as the “1988 massacre of Iranian prisoners.”

As the bitter Iran-Iraq war raged in the 1980’s, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered the arrest of all citizens suspected of holding views contrary to the regime.  Thousands, including many children, were arrested by police or abducted by intelligence agents and thrown in jail, where they were tortured.  When the war ended in 1988, Khomeini lost any excuse to keep these people in jail and he issued the following Fatwa (Islamic decree): "Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain committed to their support for the Mujahedeen, are waging war on God and are condemned to execution.... Destroy the enemies of Islam immediately. As regards the cases, use whichever criterion that speeds up the implementation of the execution verdict."

Pour-Mohammadi enthusiastically enforced the Fatwa, spearheading the ensuing massacre.  He was the key figure in Iran’s kangaroo courts, known as “death commissions,” where prisoners were swiftly accused of “crimes against god” and sentenced to death. Over 30,000 people were executed within a few months and buried in unmarked graves.  Teenagers as young as 13 were loaded onto forklift trucks and hung from cranes.  Women were raped before they were executed so they would be “denied entrance to paradise.”  As many as 50 prisoners at a time were led to the gallows every half hour, according to survivors.

Pour-Mohammadi was born in Qom in 1959 and studied theology at religious seminaries at Qom, Mashhad, and Tehran.  He served as the regime’s prosecutor of Khuzestan, Bandar Kermanshah, and Mashhad provinces from 1979-86.  Pour-Mohammadi oversaw foreign intelligence operations from 1990-98 and ordered the abduction, torture, and killing of hundreds of dissidents at home and overseas.  From 1997-99, he also served as Deputy Intelligence Minister.  
In 2003, was an advisor in the office of the Supreme Leader.  Today, he is Interior Minister and, in that role, can make life and death decisions for Iran’s citizens. [1]

Gholamhussein Mohseni Ezhei, Minister of Information

Mohseni Ezhei has held a series of senior positions in the regime’s judiciary since 1984, spearheading the purge of reformist politicians, clerics, and intellectuals, many of whom were jailed or assassinated.  In 1999, he ordered the abduction and killing of Pirouz Davani and other prominent dissidents.  That same year, he presided over the corruption trial of Tehran’s reformist mayor, Gholam Hossein Karabaschi, in which witnesses were jailed and made “confessions” under torture; the mayor was sentenced to public lashes and five years in jail while pro-regime clerics involved in the case were acquitted.

In addition, Mohseni Ezhei severely restricted freedom of expression and led a “cleansing” campaign against the country’s media.  Since 2000, over 100 newspapers have been shut down, with many journalists and intellectuals sent to jail and tortured.  In 2006, Mohseni Ezhei accompanied Ahmadinejad to a “terror summit” in Syria where Iran’s government met with eight Islamic militant groups, gave them “large sums of money,” and debated potential targets to strike in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

Mohseni Ezhei was born in Ejiyeh, the central province of Isfahan, in 1956.  With an MA in international law, Mohseni Ezhei served as head of the Intelligence Ministry's select committee from 1984-85, representative of the Judiciary in the Ministry of Information from 1986-88 and 1991-94, head of the prosecutor’s office in charge of economic affairs from 1989-90, Prosecutor General of the Special Court for the Clergy from 1995-2005, and head of the Judicial Complex for Government Employees from 1996-2002.  Countless Iranian intellectuals and dissidents were abducted, jailed, tortured, and murdered while Mohseni Ezhei held these positions. [2]

Manouchehr Mottaki, Foreign Minister

While serving as Iran’s ambassador to Turkey, Mottaki was directly involved in a series of kidnappings and assassinations.  Iran’s secret service used Tehran’s embassy in Ankara and the consulate-general in Istanbul as safe houses to abduct and murder Iranian dissidents who had fled to Turkey to escape the horrors at home.  Iran targeted about 100 Iranians inside Turkey while Mottaki was stationed there from 1985 until Ankara demanded that he leave in 1989.  Victims were tortured and killed inside the embassy, according to some accounts.  Some victims were killed and buried in unmarked graves in Turkey while others were abducted and smuggled back to Iran where they were jailed or executed.  Mottaki worked closely with Iranian agents, giving them intelligence and logistical assistance.

In 1988, Iranian dissident Abolhassan Mojtahedzadeh was kidnapped in Istanbul and taken to Tehran’s consulate-general building in that city where he was allegedly tortured.  Turkish police later found him tied up in the back of an official Iranian embassy vehicle a few kilometres from the Iranian border.  Mottaki played a major part in plotting the kidnapping as well as the attempt to smuggle him across the border into Iran.  In another incident that year, Turkish authorities handed 54 Iranians living in Turkey to Iran’s embassy.  Some were killed and buried in unmarked graves inside Turkey, others were killed on route to Iran, and the rest were executed upon arrival.

Mottaki was born in Bandar Gaz, in the northern province of Golestan, in 1953.  He received a BA in social sciences from Bangalore University India in 1976 and an MA in international relations from Tehran University Iran in 1996.  He served as Tehran’s ambassador to Ankara from 1985-89.  After Turkey demanded his removal from the position, he returned to Iran to head the Western Europe desk in the ministry of Foreign Affairs.  In 1994, he was Iran’s ambassador to Japan.  Mottaki returned to Iran in 1999 and served in a series of positions in the Foreign Ministry until he was appointed Foreign Minister in 2005. [3]

 

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Footnotes

[I] "Ministers of Murder,” Human Rights Watch report
“Iran parliament approves hard line Cabinet Ministers,” Asharq Alawasat, August 25, 2005
“Pour-Mohammadi and the 1988 prison massacres,” Human Rights Watch report
Lamb, Christina, “Khomeini Fatwa led to killing of 30,000 in Iran, The Telegraph,
“Pour-Mohammadi and the 1988 serial murders of dissident intellectuals,” Human Rights Watch report
“Iranian ministers accused of human rights abuses,” Financial Times, December 15, 2005

[2] “Mohseni Ezhei: from Inquisitor to Minister of Information,” Human Rights Watch report
 “Iran, human rights developments,” Human Rights Watch report,
“Iran attacks on Justice 2000,” International Commission of Jurists, August 13, 2001
Zadeh, Ali Nouri, “Iran’s secret plan if attacked codenamed ‘Judgement Day’,” Asharq Alawasat, April 27, 2006
Baxter, Sarah, “Iran’s president recruits terror master,” Times of London, April 23, 2006

[3] “Iran’s new Foreign Minister was involved in terrorism,” Iran Terror Database, August 25, 2005
 Human Rights Watch report
Sancton, Thomas, “the Tehran Connection,” Time, March 21, 1994 
Navai, Ramita and Beeston, Richard, “Iran sacks diplomats in purge of reformers,” The Times of London, November 2, 2005