Abbas Amir Entezam, the most famous political prisoner of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has passed away.
Abbas Amir Entezam, an official in the first post-revolutionary government and the most famous political prisoner in the Islamic Republic of Iran, died at the age of 86 after a long period of imprisonment.
Iranian news agencies quoted Elahe Amir-Entezam, the wife of this prominent figure in Iran, as confirming his death. He was born in 1932.
With the coming to power of Mehdi Bazargan's government, Abbas Amir Entezam rose to positions such as Deputy Prime Minister in the interim government and the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Scandinavia and Sweden. At one point, he was the spokesman for Bazargan's interim government.
In 1979, at the height of the hostage crisis involving diplomats and US embassy staff, Mr. Amir Entezam was also arrested and, after a long trial, was initially sentenced to death on charges of collaborating with the US Central Intelligence Agency, known as the CIA, but his death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.
His opposition to the Supreme Leader's position in Iran's Constitutional Assembly of Experts was cited as one of the reasons that made Amir Entezam angry with Ayatollah Khomeini.
Mr. Amir Entezam was imprisoned for two decades, but since the mid-1970s, he has been on leave occasionally due to his physical condition.
Prince Reza Pahlavi also reacted to Amir Entezam's death in a tweet, writing: "Amir Entezam endured the most severe pressures but never surrendered to the criminal sect."
