Albert Pierrepoint (30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) is the most famous member of the family which provided three of the United Kingdom's official hangmen in the first half of the 20th century. He was born in Clayton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and lived in Bradford, Lincoln, Oldham and the seaside resort of Southport.
Pierrepoint allegedly became an opponent of capital punishment. The reason for this seems to be a combination of the experiences of his father, his uncle, and himself, whereupon reprieves were granted in accordance with political expediency or public fancy and little to do with the merits of the case in question. He had also hanged a slight acquaintance James Corbitt on 28 November 1950; Corbitt was a regular in his pub, and had sung "Danny Boy" as a duet with Pierrepoint on the night he murdered his girlfriend in a fit of jealousy because she would not give up a second boyfriend. This incident in particular made Pierrepoint feel that hanging was no deterrent, particularly when most of the people he was executing had killed in the heat of the moment rather than with premeditation or in furtherance of a robbery. Pierrepoint kept his opinions to himself on the topic until his 1974 autobiography, Executioner: Pierrepoint, in which he wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off.”
However, Pierrepoint's opinion with regard to capital punishment remains controversial and the subject of debate, mostly due to a 1976 interview with BBC Radio Merseyside, in which the former executioner expresses his uncertainty towards the sentence, and reminds the interviewer that, when the autobiography was originally written, "things were going steady." In addition, he states "Oh, I could go again" when describing his reaction to particularly vile murder cases.
Albert Pierrepoint is wrong to describe executions as nothing but revenge, no…execution is justice not revenge. I suspect that it could be that he was under pressure by the abolitionists. When Pierrepoint was the executioner during before the 1960’s, homicide rates were so much lower than it was today. If there were people like Albert Pierrepoint today in UK, more lives will be saved from homicide. Britain made the great mistake of disclosing who their hangmen are, they should keep the executioners’ names in secret.
James Corbitt, whose father of the same name was hung by Albert Pierrepoint on 28 November 1950, said, "My father probably deserved the hangman's noose. They should bring back capital punishment for certain crimes. Anybody who kills somebody should hang unless it was in self-defence. People like the Moors' Murderers shouldn't be put in prison. They deserve to die. It's as simple as that.”
Mr Corbitt, a schoolboy when his father was hanged, insisted, that Pierrepoint deserved thanks for calming his father's nerves by greeting him as Tish. He said: "He made it easier, didn't he? As far as I am concerned, there is no need for him to feel badly about it. My father knew what he was doing. He was thinking about killing the woman for a year."
Despite Pierrepoint's own apparent conclusions, Mr Corbitt, whose parents had separated before the murder, insisted: "I still think the death penalty would act as a deterrent. I wouldn't like the idea of a rope being put around my neck."
If nobody wants to be an executioner, the state should hire a Saudi Arabian executioner who takes pride in his job. I am not in favor of sharia law. But let us focus on preventing murder, terrorism and drug trafficking. If nobody wants to do the hangman or executioner job in Europe, we can hire him to do it.Most executions take place in the three major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dahran. Saudi executioners take great pride in their work and the post tends to be handed down from one generation to the next. Since the United States is having a great problem with searching for drugs for lethal injections, they should consider hiring a Saudi executioner to do the job, as they seem to be the only ones in the world who will be willing to do the profession of protecting society.
I read an article of Muhammad Saad al-Beshi(لبيشي محمد سعد), he has been an executioner for the government of Saudi Arabia since 1998. He has been described as "Saudi Arabia's leading executioner". Here is an interview from him on Thursday 5 June 2003:
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Kingdom’s Leading Executioner Says: ‘I Lead a Normal Life’
Mahmoud Ahmad, Arab News Staff —
JEDDAH, 5 June 2003 — Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner Muhammad Saad Al-Beshi will behead up to seven people in a day.
“It doesn’t matter to me: Two, four, 10 — As long as I’m doing God’s will, it doesn’t matter how many people I execute,” he told Okaz newspaper in an interview.
He started at a prison in Taif, where his job was to handcuff and blindfold the prisoners before their execution. “Because of this background, I developed a desire to be an executioner,” he says.
He applied for the job and was accepted.
His first job came in 1998 in Jeddah. “The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away.” Of course he was nervous, then, he says, as many people were watching, but now stage fright is a thing of the past.
He says he is calm at work because he is doing God’s work. “But there are many people who faint when they witness an execution. I don’t know why they come and watch if they don’t have the stomach for it.
“Me? I sleep very well,” he adds.
Does he think people are afraid of him? “In this country we have a society that understands God’s law,” he says. “No one is afraid of me. I have a lot of relatives, and many friends at the mosque, and I live a normal life like everyone else. There are no drawbacks for my social life.”
Before an execution, nonetheless, he will go to the victim’s family to obtain forgiveness for the criminal. “I always have that hope, until the very last minute, and I pray to God to give the criminal a new lease of life. I always keep that hope alive.”
Al-Beshi will not reveal how much he gets paid per execution as this is a confidential agreement with the government. But he insists that the reward is not important. “I am very proud to do God’s work,” he reiterates.
However, he does reveal that a sword will cost something in the region of SR20,000. “It’s a gift from the government. I look after it and sharpen it once in a while, and I make sure to clean it of bloodstains.
“It’s very sharp. People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body.”
By the time the victims reach the execution square they have surrendered themselves to death, he says, though they may hope to be forgiven at the last minute. “Their hearts and minds are taken up with reciting the Shahada.” The only conversation with the prisoner is when he tells him to say the Shahada.
“When they get to the execution square, their strength drains away. Then I read the execution order, and at a signal I cut the prisoner’s head off.”
He has executed numerous women without hesitation, he explains. “Despite the fact that I hate violence against women, when it comes to God’s will, I have to carry it out.”
There is no great difference between executing men and women, except that the women wear hijab, and nobody is allowed near them except Al-Beshi himself when the time for execution comes.
When executing women he will use either gun or sword. “It depends what they ask me to use. Sometimes they ask me to use a sword and sometimes a gun. But most of the time I use the sword,” he adds.
As an experienced executioner, 42-year-old Al-Beshi is entrusted with the task of training the young. “I successfully trained my son Musaed, 22, as an executioner and he was approved and chosen,” he says proudly. Training focuses on the way to hold the sword and where to hit, and is mostly through observing the executioner at work.
An executioner’s life, of course, is not all killing. Sometimes it can be amputation of hands and legs. “I use a special sharp knife, not a sword,” he explains. “When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.”
Al-Beshi describes himself as a family man. Married before he became an executioner, his wife did not object to his chosen profession. “She only asked me to think carefully before committing myself,” he recalls. “But I don’t think she’s afraid of me,” he smiles. “I deal with my family with kindness and love. They aren’t afraid when I come back from an execution. Sometimes they help me clean my sword.”
A father of seven, he is a proud grandfather already. “I have a married daughter who has a son. He is called Haza, and he’s my pride and joy. And then there are my sons. The oldest one is Saad, and of course there is Musaed, who’ll be the next executioner,” he adds.
Abdallah Bin Sa’id Abishi is another Saudi Arabian Executioner. In a TV interview, He speaks of his job, its required skills, its stresses and its challenges. He shows off his beheading swords, and he remembers the day he went to watch his dad (whose job was also beheading convicts) at work , how he saw a big black hole where the prisoner's head used to be, and how that became the turning point of his life. And he speaks of his own son, Badr, who is now in 'training' to follow the father's career path.
Some might ask me if I am in favor of sharia law as when I quote two Saudi executioners, the answer is no. I am in favor of capital punishment when it comes to murder, terrorism and drug trafficking. We need the death penalty to keep society safe, my friend lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for two years and she told me that it is a safe society where they have very low violent crimes. If Great Britain were to hire a Saudi executioner, the first three people whom I would love to see get beheaded are Dennis Nielson, Ian Huntley and Mark Dixie.
Remember a quote from French philosopher Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre: “All grandeur, all power, and all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.”
What follows is a rush transcript of an exclusive Press TV interview with Tehran's Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi.
The Iranian judiciary official provides details about the release of Clotilde Reiss, the French academic charged with spying and acting against Iran's national security. He also sheds light on the crimes committed by those executed days ago at Tehran's Evin detention center.
Press TV: Please tell us about the charges against Ms. Reiss and how she was released.
Prosecutor Jafari Dolatabadi: Well, firstly a short biography of Ms. Reiss would be appropriate.
She is a 24-year-old woman who has travelled to Iran twice. Her first short trip was three years ago and on her second trip, in early 2009, she had been invited by an Iranian university as a holder of a bachelor's degree in Persian literature and a master's degree in international relations. Of course, her invitation had been temporary and she did not extend her permit and continued her stay in this country without necessary permits from the two Iranian Ministries of Labor and Higher Education.
Gradually, she started contacting some legal experts and professors of political sciences and she also took part in illegal demonstrations and sent off video records of the protests.
An interesting point I have to mention about her is that her father works for the French atomic energy commission, and her mother is a member of the French armed forces. And prior to her trip to Iran, Clotilde herself had been working at a research center in France and apparently she has done very precise studies and research on Iran and she had been monitoring Iran. And when she came to Iran, she went to Esfahan and sent a report on Esfahan's university and bazaar, and a report on the latest situation of different social, political, parliamentary, judicial groups along with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and this indicates that she was trying to gather very precise information about the social system and state organizations of Iran.
Furthermore, the pictures that she has taken are very professional and provocative, causing some people to attend demonstrations. She has also participated in illegal demonstrations, and all these facts indicate that she is not just a French language teacher.
Iranian security forces became suspicious of her and arrested her at Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA) in Tehran in July 2009. Later, she was indicted on two counts; acts against national security (article 601) and gathering information from Iranian centers (article 501- Islamic penal code).
Several court hearing sessions were held and Ms. Reiss' attorney and the public prosecutor were present at all of them. The trials were conducted very calmly and in compliance with the law. After a period of confinement, the defendant was released on bail and handed over to the French embassy. In our opinion, this court was a symbol of law abiding, even in the case of those who have committed crimes against national security in Iran.
The court sentenced her to a total of ten years in prison; five years for actions against Iran's national security and five years for gathering information. However, since the defendant was a woman and a foreign citizen, she benefitted from the Islamic compassion ruling of our courts and her sentence was reduced to a fine equivalent to about 300 thousand dollars, which the defendant accepted and paid with no objection.
If she had objected the court's ruling, she would have had to wait for the final verdict. The court released her and gave her permission to leave Iran, because the ruling had been issued and the sentence had been handed out.
Clotilde Reiss was not acquitted. She was convicted and sentenced by the court and allowed to leave the country. This was a summary of Ms. Clotilde Reiss' trial process.
Press TV: I would like to ask you about the recent execution of five convicts which received wide coverage in the international media.
Prosecutor Jafari Dolatabadi: We issued a comprehensive announcement on the day of the executions on May 09, 2010 and the details about this issue were published in our national media.
The five executed convicts were all Iranians and four of them were Kurdish. They were all accused and convicted of bombing and terrorist activities.
The first three suspects were Farzad Kamangar, Farhad Vakili and Ali Heydarian. In 2006 in Tehran, police suspected Kamangar's car and stopped him. They ran away. The police searched the car and found bombs and explosives. Further investigations lead the police to the city of Sanandaj where they arrested Vakili and Heydarian. In the homes of all three suspects, the police found about 17 kilos of explosives, bombing equipment, RPG bullets, and other combat weapons and ammunition. They had managed to blow up two commercial and state facilities in the city of Kermanshah and then moved to Tehran, where they were preparing for their next terrorist activity. However, they accidentally got stopped by the police and their residence in Tehran was revealed.
They all had fake IDs and took orders from certain people in Turkey. They were planning to carry out more explosions in Tehran, but their being stopped by the police hampered their plans. Kamangar, Vakili and Heydarian all confessed that they were active members of PJAK, an armed group that has officially confirmed their armed activities against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
After their execution, their leader confirmed their membership of PJAK during an interview with western media.
According to article 186 of the Islamic penal code in Iran, one of the punishments for any member or supporter of an existing armed group against the Islamic Republic, who acts in favor and on behalf of that group effectively, can be execution.
Today the headquarters of PJAK exist and they have officially declared armed uprising against the Islamic Republic of Iran and they have also claimed responsibility for several bombings and explosions and they believe that they should launch an armed war on Iran.
As mentioned before, according to article 186, one of the penalties for armed enemies of the state is capital punishment.
Of course, the three men had all carried out bombings, possessed combat weapons, explosives, ammunition and fake identifications. They all had planted and detonated bombs in different cities and were planning further bombings and all these facts made article 186 applicable to them.
Ms. Shirin Alamhouli -- who was not cooperating with Kamangar, Vakili, and Heydarian at the time -- was arrested by the police in Azadi square in Tehran. She had plans to blow up a military base belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). She refused to disclose her identity for some time after her arrest, but later admitted to her membership in PJAK. In addition, PJAk issued an official announcement for its part and confirmed her membership.
Despite what some people claim, Ms. Alamhouli was not executed because of being a woman. Like wise, the other three were not executed because they were Kurdish. We do not hold grudges against any particular group or individual. By and large, we take pride in our judiciary system under which Kurds, Lurs (another Iranian ethnic minority), Arabs, or Fars people are all treated equally. As a result, the media propaganda which suggested that the convicts were executed because of being a member of the Kurdish community or because of being a woman is baseless.
The first three were arrested in 2006 and their verdicts were delivered in 2008. At that time, the appeal court verdicts were confirmed by the Supreme Court of Iran. Later, it was decided that the Provincial Appeal Court could also review execution decrees issued by the appeal court.
It took four years for the whole conviction procedure to be complete. the whole process included conducting investigations, holding appeal court sessions, and hearing objections. The verdicts were then passed on to the convicts' attorneys. The executions took place exactly 18 months after the last verdict was passed on to the country's Supreme Court. They had enough time to appeal the verdicts and could even use article 18 of the Constitution, as mentioned by certain media. Under this article, the offenders could ask for pardon and stay in confinement for indefinite years for the case to be resolved. The convicts are usually provided with a wide range of options in such cases.
One more thing I have to explain is that there was no connection between these executions and the unrest following the June presidential election in Iran.
These convicts were terrorists who were arrested in 2006 and the time gap until their execution was granted so that they could ask for pardon. Meanwhile, if no call is made by the convict himself asking for a court of appeal, the judiciary system and the prosecutor would execute the final verdict.
Therefore, the widely-circulated claim that the convicts were executed because of being Kurdish is a blatant lie. As I explained before, the whole procedure for the trial of these five lasted four years, and it took 18 months for the ruling to be put into effect. Everything I just said is based on documented proof.
The brother of Mahdi Eslamian was involved in a bombing last year in Vessal Mosque in Shiraz, which killed some of our fellow countrymen. This is while certain reports claimed that he was executed for owing 2,000,000 Rials (nearly 200 US dollars). The story is baseless.
I have explained this before and once again I repeat here that anyone who is an active member or supporter of armed terrorist groups -- which act against the Islamic Republic of Iran - will be sentenced to death.
Those who claim Eslamian was executed for owing 2,000,000 Rials are mistaken. Based on the country's constitution, any member or any active supporter of terrorist groups could face execution. Even those who provide financial support for such groups will be executed.
Some people even tried to help Mahdi Eslamian flee the country from the southern island of Kish. Eslamian's case was highly sensitive and was carried out with special care.
Certain media reports which only seek to undermine Iran's prosecution system claim a Fars (Eslamian) was put on trial with four Kurds with the sole purpose of diverting public attention from the execution of four Kurdish convicts.
Since the charges against them were related to bombing attempts, their executions were carried out all at the same time. There has not been a single person among these five who has not been convicted for terrorist acts. We strongly reject accusations leveled by certain media outlets, claiming that innocent people were executed in Iran. The accusation is flatly denied. These convicts were armed and carried out acts of terrorism and bombings across the country any chance they got. They were all arrested during police patrols.
The execution verdicts should be carried out at some point and prosecutors should go on with their rulings. In any case, the timing of the executions is likely to draw criticism from certain fronts. However, there exists no connection between the timing of the execution and the upcoming anniversary of last year's unrest following the June presidential election. Certain reports have been trying to link these two events.
Five of the most pivotal men in Iranian political history share a prayer in Tabriz, Iran in 1987. First row, left to right: Ahmad Azari Qomi, Ali Meshkini, Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Second row, left to right: Sadegh Khalkhali, Yousef Sanei
NOTE: As I mentioned in my previous column, I am strongly against the way the Iranian government treats women but if we just ignore Iran for imposing the death sentence for homosexuality and many others, and just focus on the way they execute people for the crimes of terrorism, drug trafficking and murder, they are doing an excellent job of fighting crime. This Iranian judge maybe a tyrant and a very strict jurist and I oppose most of his actions, but if you have judges like him, scumbags in your country will be afraid and crime will fall. Judges like him can protect the innocent people in the country and punish the guilty.
In regards to his quote: "If my victims were to come back on earth, I would execute them again, without exceptions."……it shows that he is harsh on crime and he is determined that those who do evil, will never do it again!
Hujjat al-Islam Sadeq Givi aka Sadegh Khalkhali (Persian: قداص یلاخلخ )(July 27, 1926 – November 26, 2003) was a hardline Twelver Shi'a cleric of the Islamic Republic of Iran who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution" that earned him a reputation as Iran's "hanging judge". A farmer's son born in Givi (Ardabil Province, Iran) [2] in appearance Khalkhali was "a small, rotund man with a pointed beard, kindly smile, and a high-pitched giggle." He was married with a son.
Khalkhali is known to have been one of Khomeini's circle of disciples as far back as 1955 and is reported to have reconstructed the former secret society of Islamic assassins known as the Fadayan-e Islam after its suppression, but was not a well-known figure to the public prior to the Islamic Revolution.
On February 24, 1979, however, Khalkhali was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to be the Sharia ruler ( عرش مکاح in Persian) or head the newly established Revolutionary Courts, and to make Islamic rulings. In the early days of the revolution he sentenced to death "hundreds of former government officials" on charges such as "spreading corruption on earth" and "warring against God." Most of the condemned did not have access to a lawyer or a jury.
Executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida and Nematollah Nassiri:
Khalkhali is famous for ordering the executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida, the Shah's long time prime minister, and Nematollah Nassiri, a former head of SAVAK.
According to one report, after sentencing Hoveida to death 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 already been carried out."
Another version of the story has Khalkhali saying that while presiding over Hoveida's execution he made sure communication links between Qasr Prison and the outside world were severed, "to prevent any last-minute intercession on his behalf by Mehdi Bazargan, the provisional prime minister."
By trying Hoveida, Khalkhali effectively undermined the position of the provisional prime minister of the Islamic Revolution, the moderate Mehdi Bazargan, who disapproved of the Islamic Revolutionary Court and sought to establish the Revolution's reputation for justice and moderation.
Foreign relations:
Khalkhali was known for his antipathy towards pre-Islamic Iran. In 1979 he wrote a book "branding King Cyrus the Great a tyrant, a liar, and a homosexual" and "called for the destruction of the Cyrus tomb and remains of the two-thousand-year-old Persian palace in Shiraz, Fars Province, the Persepolis." According an interview by Elaine Sciolino of Shiraz-based Ayatollah Majdeddin Mahallati, Khalkhali came to Persepolis with "a band of thugs" and gave an angry speech demanding that "the faithful torch the silk-lined tent city and the grandstand that the Shah had built," but was driven off by stone-throwing local residents.
Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Reza Shah's mausoleum was destroyed under the direction of Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, which was sanctioned by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
At the height of the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 following the failure of the American rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw and crash of U.S. helicopters killing their crews, Khalkhali appeared on television "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," to the anger of American viewers.
Drug traffickers:
Khalkhali later investigated and ordered the execution of many activists for federalism in Kurdistan and Turkmen Sahra, At the height of its activity Khalkhali's revolutionary court sentenced to death "up to 60 Kurds a day."
Following that, in August 1980 he was asked by President Banisadr to take charge of trying and sentencing drug dealers, and sentenced hundreds to death. Ironically, one of the complaints of the revolution's leader and Khalkhali's superior, the Ayatollah Khomeini against the regime they had overthrown was that the Shah's far more limited number of executions of drug traffickers had been `inhuman.`
In December 1980 his influence waned when he was forced to resign from the revolutionary courts because of his failure to account for $14 million seized through drug raids, confiscations, and fines," although some believe this as much the doing of President Bani-Sadr and the powerful head of the Islamic Republic Party Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti "working behind the scenes" to remove a source of bad publicity for the revolution, as a matter of outright corruption.
The interview
In an interview, Khalkhali personally confirmed ordering more than 100 executions, although many sources believe that by the time of his death he had sent 8,000 men and women to their deaths. In some cases he was the executioner, where he executed his victims using machine guns. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro he is quoted as saying, "If my victims were to come back on earth, I would execute them again, without exceptions."
Qom seminary:
Khalkhali was elected as representative for Qom in Islamic Consultative Assembly (Iranian parliament) for two terms, serving for "more than a decade." In 1992, however, he was one of 39 incumbents from the Third Majles and 1000 or so candidates rejected that winter and spring by the Council of Guardians, which vets candidates. The reason given was a failure to show a `practical commitment to Islam and to the Islamic government,` but it was thought by some to be a purge of radical critics of the conservatives in power. Controversially, he was one of the reformists and supporters of president Khatami's movement.
Khalkhali retired to Qom, where he taught Islamic seminarians. He died in 2003, at the age of 77, of cancer and heart disease.
Street tribunals of Khomeyni executioner Sadegh Khalkhali - The cleric Sadegh Khalkhali appointed by Khomeyni as the Islamic judge in 1979 . He executed thousands of politicians including PM Hoveyda ,army officers , pilots , women and member of political parties all over Iran . This scenes of his tribunal streets claimed to be against narcotraficer was filmed by a freelance cameraman in the beginning of revolution . The quality is old and was kept in a non convenient environment , therefore it have low quality .
The death of Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali aged 77 marks another step on the road towards reforms and the recognition of human rights in Iran. Khalkhali, known as the hanging judge, was at the forefront of the reign of terror that followed the Iranian revolution in 1979 and was a founder member of the Militant Clergy of Tehran who were committed to Islamification at all costs.
As the president of the Revolutionary Courts, his trials of many of the Shah's leading lieutenants were initially heard in classrooms. They sometimes lasted as little as one minute; executions on the school rooftops usually followed immediately.
He was a farmer's son, born near Khalkhal (hence his name), and was part of that group of bright young men who attended religious schools, which have always provided an alternative route to education. He was active as an Islamist resistance fighter from the 1950s until the ousting of the Shah.
The killings began five days after Ayatollah Khomeini's return in February 1979 from Paris. By November, 550 people had been executed.
In May 1980 Khalkhali was moved sideways and appointed to head an anti-narcotic campaign. The move did not diminish his power to kill at will. Within weeks there were 127 executions; by the end of August there were 200, including members of Marxist organisations and prisoners on hunger strike.
In December, President Bani-Sadr forced the "bloody judge" to resign for failure to account for over $14m seized by the agency through drug raids confiscation and fines. By sacking him, Bani-Sadr incurred Khalkhali's wrath, which, in June 1981, led to a successful move to impeach the president. A beaming Khalkhali announced the decision to a cheering crowd and symbolically grasped his own throat as the sign for the hangman. In the event Bani-Sadr managed to leave the country dressed as a woman.
The departure of Bani-Sadr marked the beginning of the bloodiest phase of the post-revolutionary struggle for power. There was a massive purge of the administration and the media. The resistance movements staged counterattacks and bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party. The regime retaliated by open attacks and mass executions.
Ayatollah Khalkhali announced that every citizen had the right to be an executioner and told the faithful to "dispense with troublesome formalities". Gallows were hitched up in main Tehran streets and sometimes as many as eight people were hanged at the same time. In the mayhem that ensued, the age of treason was lowered and children as young as nine were "executed". Within a couple of months over 8000 people had been killed.
Eventually the thirst for blood was satiated. In December 1982 Ayatollah Khomeini, as spiritual leader, issued an eight-point decree announcing that the state had a duty of care to its citizen and demanding that the indiscriminate killing be curbed. Gradually the killings abated, but the legacy that Khalkhali left was the conviction that it was possible, and indeed laudable, for "Islamic courts" to execute individuals at will.
In 1984, Khalkhali returned to the parliament as the representative for Qom. But it was in 1989 that he helped to make yet another indelible mark on the destiny of the Islamic Republic - as a kingmaker.
Immediately after Khomeini's death in 1989, Khalkhali was the first person to propose Hojatoleslam Ali Khamenei as the spiritual leader of the nation. This was an extraordinary suggestion since the spiritual leader was required to be one of the best Islamic scholars in the land and a leading ayatollah. Khamenei lacked all those necessary qualifications.
But Khalkhali's proposal was supported by the speaker of the House, Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. Both were determined to secure the legacy of Khomeini and argued that what the spiritual leader required most of all was political nous and the ability to direct the nation along the lines drawn by Khomeini.
With all anti-Khomeini elements purged, the assembly voted Khamenei as spiritual leader and elevated him to ayatollah. The long Shia tradition of contestation and scholarship was buried under the weight of Khomeini and his disciples' interpretations of the faith. Thus Khalkhali effectively secured Khomeini's legacy and his own influence as a power behind the throne.
However, President Khatami's 1997 landslide election was a firm rejection of everything that Khalkhali had stood for. Khalkhali made a symbolic nod towards reformism. But his influence continues through the theocrat Khamenei, who remains true to the ideals of Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khalkhali leaves a wife and a son.
· Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali, cleric, born July 27 1926; died November 27 2003
