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Shirin Ebadi: Khomeini Ignored Request to Reveal Fate of Musa Sadr | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi addresses a speech during a demonstration against the presidential election in Iran outside the European Parliament in Brussels June 24, 2009. REUTERS/Yves Herman


London- Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi disclosed that Iran played a role in the decision taken by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to kill Imam Musa al-Sadr in 1979.

Speaking for the first time about the disappearance of the founder of the Lebanese Amal Movement, Iranian Nobel laureate Ebadi said that in 1979, “Sadr stayed for several days in Libya waiting for the arrival of Khomeini’s aide Mohammad Beheshti. However, Sadr decided to leave the country when Beheshti’s arrival was delayed.”

In an interview with the Farsi-speaking Radio Farda, Ebadi said Sadr was detained at an unknown location after Khomeini’s aide telephoned the Libyan leader.

“Beheshti informed Gadhafi that Sadr was in contact with the Iranian Shah, and that they had received evidence proving Sadr was in connection with the Americans.”

The lawyer said: “Beheshti asked for the termination of Sadr to remove him from the way of Khomeini. Therefore, Gadhafi ordered that Sadr be killed and buried at an unknown location in the Libyan Desert.”

Ebadi also said she hopes to find new evidence than can clarify what truly happened with Sadr and the role that Khomeini and Beheshti played in his disappearance.

The lawyer said Sadr had “disappeared in a suspicious way that drove her attention.”

Researches conducted by Ebadi showed the presence of a big political dispute between Sadr and Khomeini because Sadr had inclinations towards splitting the state from religion and had refused at that time to cooperate with Khomeini.

Ebadi said Sadr’s family had asked for her help to find him during a meeting at her office in Tehran in the early 1980’s.

Ebadi said the request surprised her due to the family ties that exist between the line of Khomeini and the line of Sadr.

The lawyer said that the Sadr family told her that the Iranian Foreign Ministry had rejected a request to find Sadr because the Iranian authorities “did not want to sacrifice the political relations for family relations.”