IRAN: Summary Justice

Harsh penalties for those who sowed "corruption on earth"

In the euphoric days that followed the exile of the Shah, the streets of Iran's cities echoed to the rallying cry of the Islamic revolution: "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great!). Last week those shouts were heard again, this time from behind the walls of Qasr prison, a grim fortress in downtown Tehran. "Allahu Akbar!" shouted witnesses at closed trials of military men and government officials who had served the Shah. "Allahu Akbar!" cried members of the firing squads that dispatched the condemned.

By week's end at least 109 officials of the old regime had been tried, found guilty and shot, in a display of revolutionary justice that to much of the world seemed vengeful and barbaric. The trial scenes recalled the bloody aftermath of other revolutions, such as the Reign of Terror in 18th century France (see box) and the roster of the doomed read like a Who's Who of Iranian politics.

The most prominent victim was Amir Abbas Hoveida, 60, Iran's Premier from 1965 to 1977. After an extended trial, he was found guilty of treason and "sowing corruption on earth." Among the other men convicted by the courts were former Foreign Minister Abbas Ali Khalatbari, several former members of the Majlis (parliament) and more than two dozen generals, including the last chief of the air force and two former heads of SAVAK, the secret police.

The trials were an acute embarrassment to Premier Mehdi Bazargan. Last month, angered by accounts of the humiliation of Hoveida in midnight hearings, Bazargan went on TV to denounce the summary trials as "a disgrace." During a midnight visit to the holy city of Qum, he persuaded Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the revolution, to suspend all trials (including Hoveida's) until new guidelines could be set. But when regulations were announced two weeks ago, the trials resumed not under the jurisdiction of the ministry of justice, but of a hitherto unknown Council of Revolutionary Tribunals. The council is believed to be an arm of the secret Revolutionary Council, directed by Khomeini, that may well be the real governing authority in Iran. A spokesman for Bazargan said last week that the Premier did not learn of Hoveida's death sentence until several hours after the execution had taken place. But he added that Bazargan felt that the penalty was in order.

Defendants in the revolutionary courts are tried under the Shari'a, the Islamic law based primarily on the Koran, rather than under Iran's penal code. Trials are conducted by a five-man panel of judges. Verdicts in the trials, some of which have lasted less than an hour, are reached by a majority vote of the judges; the sentence is handed down by the senior judge, whose appointment is approved by Khomeini, and carried out immediately. There are no appeals. The new regulations allow for defense attorneys, though none were seen at last week's trials in Tehran. The guidelines also allow for "open" courts; in practice, attendance has usually been limited to witnesses, relatives of the accused and reporters from Ettela'at a formerly pro-Shah newspaper that now supports the government. Some members of the foreign press have recently been admitted.