Word: beheshti
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Presiding over this reign of terror was a three-man presidential council, which took power after Khomeini ousted Banisadr. The council's chief member, Supreme Court President Ayatullah Mohammed Beheshti, has gradually emerged as the strongest of the three, by virtue of his leadership of the clergy-controlled Islamic Republic Party (I.R.P.), the dominant political party in Iran. The other council members were Parliamentary Speaker Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Raja'i, who has assumed Banisadr's presidential functions until the July elections, when an I.R.P. candidate is expected...
...reasons may be that some militant clerical leaders also had incriminating files in the embassy. Among them were Ayatullah Mohammed Beheshti, head of the Iranian Supreme Court, and Seyyed Ali Khamene'i, a leader of the Islamic Republican Party, who both had numerous contacts with the embassy before and after the fall of the late Shah...
...their Islamic Republic Party feel that they must demonstrate an ability to improve relations with foreign governments, an obviously difficult task so long as the hostages remain in Iran. Ironically, no one sounded more eager to send the Americans home last week than I.R.P. Leader Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, who had previously been instrumental in prolonging the crisis. Said Beheshti: "The U.S. has to a large extent met our demands. There is now no basic catch in reaching a final solution...
...initial reaction of key Iranian officials was not encouraging. Ali Reza Nobari, the American-educated governor of Iran's central bank, described the American reply as "cool to us" and doubted that U.S. law was a real obstacle to satisfying all the demands. Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, leader of the hard-lining Islamic Republican Party, threatened again that if the U.S. response was deemed unsatisfactory, the Majlis would have to decide whether to try the hostages as spies...
Raja'i is unlikely to be much more than a front man for Beheshti and his clerical allies. The new Prime Minister is unimposing in person; he has no popular following and little apparent political savvy. Critics say that he is "headstrong" only when standing on firm ground. Arrested for distributing antigovernment literature in 1974, Raja'i is said by fellow inmates to have begged for mercy when tortured by SAVAK, the Shah's secret police. "His behavior at the time was certainly not heroic," notes one former prisoner. Students in his math classes at the Kamal...