Iran’s first president, Abolhasán Banisadr, has died after “a long illness” at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, where he had lived in exile since 1981. Benisadr had to flee the country after being dismissed by forces related to the Shiite clergy and their members. sympathizers who participated in the revolution against the shah were persecuted.
“After a long illness, Abolhasán Banisadr died on Saturday in the hospital” in Pitié-Salpêtrière, reported the official Iranian news agency IRNA, citing a source close to the former head of state, who died at the age of 88.
Banisadr was the visible head of a group of Western-educated revolutionaries who participated in the 1979 Revolution against the Shah of Persia, who had ruled the country authoritatively since 1941.
First, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the provisional revolutionary government and condemned the taking of 52 American hostages at the Embassy of that country in Tehran. Already in 1980 he won the presidential elections with 75 percent of the vote and the support of Ayatollah Ruholá Khomeini. From his new position from which he challenged the powerful Shiite clergy who took over the reins of the Revolution.
The result was the beginning of an impeachment process in Parliament that culminated just 17 months after his inauguration. He also experienced the beginning of the war between Iran and Iraq with a defiant Saddam Hussein, supported by the West and who expected an easy victory in the war that would last eight long years.
Banisadr eventually went into hiding for fear of reprisals and managed to leave the country in an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by sympathizers. Many of his left-wing followers were jailed or executed. From exile, he denounced his dismissal as a coup led by the clergy and the Revolutionary Guard.
Since May 1984 he lived in Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, with permanent protection. Previously he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise and Cachan, also near Paris.
