Mohammad Beheshti (1929-28 June 1981) was the Chief Justice of Iran from 1979 to 1981, succeeding Nasser Yeganeh and preceding Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili. Beheshti was assassinated by the MEK in the 1981 Hafte Tir bombing along with 71 other government officials.
Biography[]
Mohammad Beheshti was born in 1929 in Isfahan in the Kingdom of Iran to a Shi'ite Muslim family. From 1965 to 1970 he led the Islamic Center in Hamburg in West Germany, and he was arrested many times by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's SAVAK secret police force due to his opposition to the secular monarchy of the Pahlavis. He later headed to Najaf, Iraq, where he went into exile with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the two became close associates in their opposition to the Iranian monarchy. In 1979 he was made the Chief Justice of Iran, having withdrawn from the presidential elections. Beheshti was assassinated by the People's Mujahideen of Iran in a bomb attack with 72 other politicians on 28 June 1981 in Hafte Tir, Tehran.