The Fifth Prison

Ayatollah Khamenei
The Fifth Prison

A Souvenir from a Great Celebration 

The year 1971 CE was a year that the dreams of the Pahlavi government, the seeds of which were sown in the late 1930s, became true and now, after about twelve years, it is recovering from the ruins of Persepolis. This dream was the celebration of the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire.

The year was the year of the rulers’ intoxication. The State Intelligence and Security Agency was tasked with doing everything in its power to stop any opposition or remove any obstacle to the 2,500-year celebration. The clergy community was one of those who opposed such a celebration. According to the SAVAK, those who had previously been arrested, imprisoned on the charge of acting against the government and then released were more likely to disrupt the celebrations. Therefore, it was decided that “using all the facilities and, if necessary, controlling the correspondence and calls and appointing a team, the security agencies should re-identify and determine their place of residence and work.” In this regard, a secret letter was sent from the third office of SAVAK to the Tehran bureau, ordering that the above-mentioned measures should be taken against Sayyed Ali Khamenei.

After receiving the order, Ghazanfari, a SAVAK officer in Khorasan, said that on January 22, 1971, Sheykhan, the head of the SAVAK in Khorasan, had given the necessary warnings to Mr. Khamenei.

These letters and comments were exchanged at a time when Ayatollah Khamenei had travelled to Tehran. August 5, he was at the Hedayat Mosque and was listening to Dr. Mohammad-Javad Bahonar’s speech. He had arrived in Tehran the same day. At first, he went to Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s house, and in the evening they both went to see Ayatollah Taleqani at the Hedayat Mosque. The person who spied for SAVAK, also told them that he would leave Tehran and go to Qom in a few days.

The souvenir of the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire for Ayatollah Khamenei was nothing but an arrest for the fifth time.

The Fifth Arrest

He was arrested on September 26, 1971, sixteen days before the opening of the royal celebrations. At around 1 pm that day, the SAVAK agents, along with Captain Qods Hoseyni, the representative of the military court prosecutor, were waiting behind the door of his house.

Officers rushed into the house, and the first place they looked was the library, which was next to the living room. They flipped through all the books, papers, manuscripts, and pamphlets, and took whatever they wanted. After that, they searched every corner of the house and even looked into the wardrobe.

When the search finished, they took Ayatollah Khamenei and what they had been taken from the library. There were fourth books among the things that were found to be against the government interests: from the book “Comments on Ayatollah Khomeini’s Risalah” to the book “The Life of the Ant” written by Maurice Maeterlinck. In the end, they wanted him to sign a receipt indicating that they did not cause any financial damage to the house! “In this attack, a large number of my manuscripts and notes were destroyed, and I could not take back even a paper of them.”

The SAVAK headquarters had been relocated. He was put in a room. About an hour passed. Then while being blindfolded they drove him somewhere else with a car that did not have windows. When the car stopped and the blindfold was removed, he found himself in a large, high-ceilinged place. It was like a large warehouse. There were a few small rooms around it. “later on, I found out that it was part of a large stable located in the Mashhad military camp where I had been imprisoned for some time.”

They passed the stable and reached another large warehouse. In the middle of the warehouse, two buildings were facing each other. When he entered, he saw the newly built cells; this was the political prison of SAVAK in Mashhad, the construction of which had just been completed. Each building had ten doors and overall, twenty cells were ready to swallow the detainees. They sent Ayatollah Khamenei to cell number four.

They gave him two blankets. The air was not warm. The sun was about to set. He was thinking about why he has been arrested? Which of his activities has been leaked? News of which secret meeting has been exposed?

On the other hand, he had connections with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization! He had a close and continuous relationship with Mohammad Hanifnejad. He used to send the organization’s publications and statements to Ayatollah Khamenei and other clerics such as Mr. Hashemi before publication to find about their approach and views.

Perhaps it was before his arrest that Mohammad Hanifnejad and Ahmad Rezaei came to him and brought him a book entitled “cognition.” Although he was aware of the heresies within the views of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, the book assured him that their thinking is mixed with Marxism.

The next day (September 27), SAVAK asked the army to order the detention of Mr. Khamenei on charges of “acting against national security.”

He soon became acquainted with everyday life in prison. They opened the cell three times a day and gave food to the prisoner. The fourth time was for cleaning. They gave a broom to the prisoner to sweep the floor.

The Bloody Atmosphere of the New Prison 

He looked out through the crack in the wall of the cell. His eyes fell on one of the familiar clerics whom they had shaved his beard and could not walk.

After a while, they opened his cell. A SAVAK officer asked: Are you, Khamenei? He replied: “Yes.” He said, “Come with me.” He went with him to the warehouse he had seen yesterday, and then they went to one of the rooms around it. Six or seven people were there. He did not have glasses. He could not recognize anyone.

One of them came closer and he recognized him. he was an interrogator in his former prison. Mr. Khamenei had previously accused the interrogator of being an ignorant person.

Suddenly, he slapped Mr. Khamenei on the face which caused him to lose his balance. While he was trying to stand still the second shot hit him and he fell on the bed next to his hand. He wanted to get up, but one of them said, “Stay! You’ve fallen somewhere good!” They tied his legs to the bed. In front of him, whips were hanging on the wall.

The difference was in their diameter; some were equal to a finger and some were thicker. One of them grabbed the whip and began hitting his feet. He started beating. A few minutes? It was not clear, but he got tired and could not continue hitting. Another came and took the whip from him. He hit so hard that he could not continue. The third and fourth persons also did the same and got tired of hitting. Everyone in that room had the opportunity to rest and refresh himself, except for Mr. Khamenei. Some of them wet the whip and then hit the prisoner’s body.

They poured water on his head. They sprinkled water on his feet. He got consciousness again. The whipping continued. Tired torturers took off the shackles. He stumbled and couldn’t walk. His legs were swollen. The pain in his feet became unbearable. He heard someone saying, “Go back to your cells, but you will soon be here again to make a confession.”

September 29 was the day of the interrogation. To get a confession, they had tortured him with whatever they could. Mr. Khamenei also wrote five pages, albeit with an experience of going through nearly ten interrogations; he wrote about the beginning of his activities since the passing of the State and Provincial Associations Bill until the time of his arrest. The third office of SAVAK, which was following up on the results of Mr. Khamenei’s arrest, called on the SAVAK bureau in Khorasan and asked them to send a report of “the results of the actions” to the SAVAK headquarters. There was no tangible evidence. Sheykhan, the head of SAVAK in Khorasan, decided to send a copy of Mr. Khamenei’s five-page account to Tehran as the report of the interrogation.

Ramadan has arrived, even in the darkness of that dark cell. After about one month of his arrest, Sayyed Hadi Khamenei was also arrested. Like his two older brothers, Sayyed Hadi was a clergyman and was studying in the seminary, but also, he studied chemistry at the University of Mashhad. SAVAK, following Sayyed Hadi’s political activities, had not allowed the university to enroll him. Now, he went to that organization to ask them to remove this ban; but they arrested him for no reason.

One week after Sayyed Hadi’s imprisonment, SAVAK decided to prepare a meeting between the two brothers, perhaps with the aim of obtaining new information.

Abolqasem Dabiri, who was in charge of setting up this meeting, threatened Sayyed Ali Khamenei and told Sayyed Hadi that your brother had something to say but he does not say anything. “we want to torture him and certainly we will do so, but before that we wanted you to talk to him maybe he (Sayyed Ali) starts talking. He didn’t say anything and they got nothing.”

In order that all of his friends who were in prison say the same thing to the interrogators, Sayyed Hadi wrote a letter and with the help of a soldier, handed it over to his brother. Mr. Khamenei passed the letter to other cells and thus all prisoners related the same story to the SAVAK interrogators.

On November 9, he was brought to the centre of SAVAK to be interrogated about his relationship with two people; Taher Ahmadzadeh, Nemat Mirzazadeh.

Probably, these interrogations have been related to the events of February 1971, which became known as the Siahkal Incident and later led to the formation of the Iranian People’s Fadaei Guerrillas. This organization was formed of two groups, one of which was based in Mashhad. Amir-Parviz Pouyan, a friend of Nemat Mirzazadeh, and Masoud and Majid Ahmadzadeh, the sons of Taher Ahmadzadeh, were all from Khorasan who joined the group made of Bijan Jazani, Abbas Souraki, Ali-Akbar Safaei-Farahani, Mohammad-Reza Saffari-Ashtiani and Hamid Ashraf founded this organization in March 1971. On November 13, they agreed to release him on bail.

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