December 22, 1953
Mossadegh Gets 3-Year Jail Term
By WELLES HANGEN
EHERAN, Iran, Dec. 21 -- Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was sentenced to three years' solitary confinement tonight by a five-man military tribunal for an attempted rebellion against Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi.
Brig. Gen. Taghi Riahi, Army Chief of Staff under the former Premier, was sentenced to two years' disciplinary imprisonment for complicity in Dr. Mossadegh's intrigues. He also was ordered expelled from the army.
The trial exposed Dr. Mossadegh's efforts to paralyze the Iranian Parliament, bring the armed forces under his control and ultimately to defy an imperial decree dismissing him from office Aug. 16.
The 73-year-old defendant, who ruled Iran during twenty-eight turbulent months, was arrested following a royalist uprising that brought the regime of Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to power.
In a verdict that required more than an hour to read, the court found Dr. Mossadegh guilty of having ordered the arrest of Brig. Gen. Nematollah Nasiri, commander of the Shah's Imperial Guard, when he sought to deliver the Shah's dismissal order last August. It also declared that the former Premier had illegally imprisoned several government officials following General Nasiri's arrest and had disarmed the Imperial Guard.
Dr. Mossadegh, who also was primarily responsible for nationalization of Iran's oil industry was found guilty of having ordered telegrams sent to Iranian diplomatic missions abroad instructing them to have nothing to do with the Shah and Queen Soraya, who had fled the country when the dismissal order backfired.
The bill of indictment against the former Premier was sustained by the court. It convicted him of illegally dissolving a rump Majlis after organizing a rigged referendum to obtain popular support in his contest with that lower chamber of Parliament. Dr. Mossadegh also was found guilty of having issued orders to raze statues of the present Shah and the late Riza Shah, as well as having begun preparations to form a regency council to assume the Shah's functions.
Shah in Plea to Court
When the judges returned to the courtroom at 9:25 o'clock this evening Maj. Gen. Nasrollah Moghbeli, the court president, read a letter addressed to the court by the Shah in which the monarch praised "the services rendered by Dr. Mossadegh during his first year as Premier in connection with nationalization of the oil industry which is desired by the whole nation and is confirmed and supported by the monarchy itself." The Shah said he bore the former Premier no personal animus for derogatory actions and remarks Dr. Mossadegh had directed against him.
It was widely believed the court had refused to accede to the prosecutor's demand that Dr. Mossadegh be sentenced to death or at least imprisoned for life as a result of the Shah's intervention. Since the former Premier is more than 60 years of age, it was not thought likely the death penalty would be carried out. However, most persons had expected the defendant would be exiled or imprisoned for life.
When Dr. Mossadegh heard the sentence, he lifted his head and said in a calm voice heavy with sarcasm: "The verdict of this court has increased my historical glories. I am extremely grateful you convicted me. Truly tonight the Iranian nation understood the meaning of constitutionalism."
Throughout the reading of the judge's decision the defendant had assumed his habitual slumped posture, leaning heavily on a small school desk used as the defendant's bar. He wore a shapeless gray overcoat and his face had the quizzical expression that have become Mossadegh trademarks.
Conducted Own Defense
The former Premier, who insisted on conducting his own defense, had argued the Shah did not have the right to dismiss a premier without prior approval of the Majlis. He also asserted he had not known the authenticity of the dismissal order that General Nasiri attempted to deliver at the Premier's home at 1 A. M. Aug. 16.
Dr. Mossadegh based much of his appeal on an emotional attack on British colonialism that he asserted had given a death blow in Iran by the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company concession here. Throughout the trial, which began Nov. 8, Dr. Mossadegh excoriated General Zahedi and the present government for the decision to resume diplomatic relations with Britain and sought to cast himself in the role of defender of Iran's independence from foreign domination.
General Riahi argued that he had merely obeyed orders of his superior when Dr. Mossadegh was Premier. He denied having connived with the former premier to challenge the Shah's authority, and said he had not known of the Shah's Aug. 16 dismissal order.