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| Iran | |
| Ayatollah Khalkhali dies | |
| 2003-11-28 | |
| It appears that it was a natural death -- too bad. Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who died on Wednesday aged 77, was the "hanging judge" of the Iranian revolution, responsible for sending hundreds, possibly thousands, of people to their deaths; he became notorious in the West after he appeared on television poking the charred corpses of American servicemen killed in an unsuccessful bid to rescue hostages held in the American embassy in Tehran. It appears that notoriety for this kind of behavior has a limited lifespan. I haven’t seen any reports of this in the news, and I don’t expect that we’ll see this footage again. It’s a shame, because we need occasional reminders. Khalkhali, known as "the butcher" to his Appears to be a British-ism (maybe Bulldog can elaborate), but maybe "makes Judge Roy Bean seem like Ruth Bader Ginsberg" would be a close analogy... Khalkhali acted as prosecutor, judge and jury in his own cases, regarding his rulings as "the judgment and conscience of 35 million people". He developed a new judicial concept called "obvious guilt" - whereby the accused is presumed guilty if his or her "crimes" were "very clear" prior to the trial. A modified version of this concept is being used by Charles Schumer in evaluating Bush’s nominees... Stories of his cruelty were legion. One of his first victims was Amir-Abbas Hoveida, the Shah’s prime minister for eight years. After sentence had been passed, 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 aleady been carried out." Some of Khalkhali’s victims were no more than children. When a 14-year-old boy he had had executed turned out to be innocent, Khalkhali remarked that the child was not on his conscience because he had "sent him to heaven". His critics maintained that in his early life Khalkhali had spent time in a mental institution for torturing cats; it was said that strangling cats remained one of his favourite pastimes. Why is it always cats with these guys (I think Dahmer had the same "pasttime")? I thought that dogs were the pet that Islam dislikes... I guess they fight back too hard. The months after the 1979 Iranian revolution saw the execution of many ministers, army officers and others with connections, however tenuous, with the Shah. "Those who fought with God on earth or with his prophets, or who spread corruption on earth must be killed, and hanged when they are killed, to show their bodies to the people," Khalkhali proclaimed. ROPMA Many of Khalkhali’s victims were Iranian Kurds, on whom Ayatollah Khomeini had declared a holy war in August 1979. At the height of the terror, up to 60 Kurds a day were being sentenced to death by Khalkhali’s itinerant kangaroo court. A small, rotund man with a pointed beard, kindly smile, and a high-pitched giggle, Khalkhali did not look the ogre he clearly was. Like Eichmann, he saw himself as a loyal servant who had only been obeying orders. And enjoying every moment of it... When the French newspaper Le Figaro asked him whether he should face trial for crimes against humanity, he replied: "No. It is not possible. If I had acted wrongly, Imam Khomeini would have told [me]. I only did what he asked me to do." But he added: "If my victims were to come back on earth, I would execute them again, without exceptions." I must have missed the protests against the Iranian government that must have occured over these executions... surely ANSWER (or its predecessors) were out there in force? Weren’t they? Khalkhali’s macabre sense of humour was brought home to the West in April 1980 when the bodies of American servicemen killed in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the American embassy hostages in Tehran were discovered in the remote desert region where their helicopter had crashed. Khalkhali, who travelled to the site to supervise the recovery of the bodies, was reported to have commented, "I’m sorry I didn’t find them alive". Later he presided over a press conference held in the backyard of the embassy, at which the bodies were displayed to the world’s press. Few events of the past 50 years - with the exception of the September 11 bombings - angered the American public so much as the spectacle of Khalkhali gloatingly 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. The grisly footage from Tehran was repeated over and over again until American audiences had caught every snide gesture and touch of degradation Khalkhali could bring to the scene. It was burned into my memory, that’s for sure... Sadeq Khalkhali was born in 1926 and emerged from obscurity in February 1979 to head the newly established revolutionary courts. After his dealings with the Kurds, Khalkhali was ordered by Ayatollah Khomeini to crack down on drug dealers, a task he performed with his customary élan. But Khalkhali’s bloodthirsty views soon began to embarrass the revolutionary leadership and in December 1980 he was forced to resign because of his failure to account for millions of dollars worth of money seized in raids on drug traffickers and amassed in fines.
Now that’s understatement... Khalkhali is survived by a wife and son. ...and the remaining cats in Qom. | |
| Posted by:snellenr |
| #6 "...a relish for summary execution that would have made Judge Jeffries seem like a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform." Judge Jeffries became notorious for his "Bloody Assizes" in the late 17th Century. He was a judicial tyrant renowned for a lack of compassion. The Howard League for Penal Reform seems to be some sort of bleeding-heart org dedicated to minimising the 'suffering' of the criminally inclined. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-11-29 6:31:48 AM |
| #5 RE: Cats When cats are being tortured, the have a high pitched scream that sounds like a woman. It is a way of desensitizing themselves for when they start doing it to people. Sick Bastards. Definitely a precursor/indicator to later violence. |
| Posted by: Eric 2003-11-29 1:25:51 AM |
| #4 Let us all hope most dilligently that whatever God has removed this nutcase decides to mate him up with Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a new life, and unites them this week. Ginsburg would be a perfect candidate for a mouse-human brain transplant - it might raise her conscience level a tad. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-28 4:17:16 PM |
| #3 And coughing up hairballs every ten seconds. |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-11-28 12:42:09 PM |
| #2 Destined to spend enternity with two one ounce baggies of cosmic kitty nip sewn into his butt and live amongst cats who have discovered advanced steroids. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-28 12:17:30 PM |
| #1 Wecome to Hell. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-28 12:14:02 PM |