Sayyid Assadollah Ladjevardi was an Iranian conservative politician, prosecutor and warden. He was assassinated by the People's Mujahedin of Iran on 23 August 1998.
Early life and education
Lajevardi was born in Tehran in 1935. He studied theological sciences before working as a bazaar draper.
Lajevardi was a follower of Ayatollah Kashani and Fadayian Islam. He was arrested and convicted on three occasions for militant activities. In 1964, he served 18 months for taking part in the assassination of the late Iranian prime minister Mansour. Later in 1970, he served three years in Evin prison for attempting to blow up the offices of El Al in Tehran. Finally, he was once again arrested and sentenced to 18 years in prison, for being a member of the opposition militant group People's Mujahedin of Iran. He was among those who visited Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris when the latter was in exile.
Warden
In 1979, with the onset of the Iranian Revolution, Lajevardi was appointed as the chief prosecutor of Tehran on Mohammad Beheshti's recommendation. Lajevardi was given the extra post of warden in June 1981 after the first post-revolutionary warden of Evin, Mohammad Kachouyi, was assassinated. According to Ervand Abrahamian, Lajevardi "liked to be addressed as Hajj Aqa, and boasted he was so proud of Evin that he had brought his family to live there." He was temporarily removed from his post in 1984, but continued to live at Evin with his family to avoid assassination. Ladjevardi maintained that the Islamic Republic had converted prisons into 'rehabilitation centers' and 'ideological schools', where inmates studied Islam, learned the errors of their ways, and did penance before returning to society. As the chief warden at Evin, the main political prison in Tehran, Ladjevardi "boasted that more than 95 percent of his 'guests' eventually oblige him with his sought-after videotaped 'interview'"—i.e., a confession of their political errors and praise of the Islamic Republic and the prison staff. However to his critics, he was known as "the butcher of Evin Prison" with dreadful, religiously fanatic, and thuggish narcissist mannerisms. The number of executions under his supervision is estimated to be roughly around 2500 according to one account. In her memoir, Iran Awakening,Nobel Peace PrizeLaureateShirin Ebadi states that an estimated 4000-5000 members and supporters of the People's Mujahedin of Iran were executed during a three-month period in 1988 immediately following the failed "Mersad" rebellion, which was launched upon the end of the Iran–Iraq War by MKO fighters based in Iraq. According to Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, Lajevardi's close relations with some of the prisoned members of Furqan group made them "repent". Lajevardi's son, Sayyid Ehsan, described his father as being both decisive and kind.
On 23 August 1998, on the tenth anniversary of the mass executions, Ladjevardi was assassinated by members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran. Using an Uzi submachine gun the activists opened fire on Lajevardi and his bodyguard at Lajevardi's tailor-shop in Tehran Bazaar. Following his assassination, the Mojahedin Command Headquarters inside Iran issued a statement that reads
"Assadollah Lajevardi, the infamous 'Butcher of Evin,' who was accompanied by a special group of bodyguards made up of Revolutionary Guards and armed agents of the notorious secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence, was killed at midday today in an operation carried out by Mojahedin's Resistance units in Tehran."
The statement, claimed Lajevardi
directly responsible for the execution of tens of thousands of political prisoners... raped and executed hundreds of women... made it a common practice in prisons to torture prisoners in front of their parents, husbands or wives and children... devised a plan to set up forced labor camps for political prisoners on a nationwide scale...
and though retired was continuing "his crimes under various covers" including as a tailor in Tehran's Bazaar.
