The Body of Abbas Amirentajam Laid to Rest

The body of Abbas Amirentajam, spokesperson and deputy prime minister of the provisional government, was laid to rest on Friday, July 13, in Behesht Zahra, Tehran. A group of political activists held a memorial service at his home. According to published images, Ahmad Montazeri, the son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, prayed over Amirentajam's body before his burial. Additionally, ISNA reported that on Friday morning, a group of political activists, including Mostafa Tajzadeh, Mohammad Maleki, Alizadeh Tabatabai, Majid Farahani, Hojjat Nazari, Elaheh Koulaei, and Emadeddin Baghi, gathered at Amirentajam's home for a memorial service. It was previously announced that Amirentajam's funeral would take place in front of his house, but some social media users reported that security agencies opposed holding the ceremony. ISNA also noted that Amirentajam's body was supposed to be brought to his home for a farewell ceremony, but this did not happen due to 'some coordination issues.' During the funeral, Mohammad Tosuli, the Secretary-General of the Freedom Movement, and several members of this group attended. Abbas Amirentajam, referred to as the oldest political prisoner of the Islamic Republic, passed away on Thursday morning, July 12. Following the attack by 'Imam Line' students on the U.S. embassy in Iran, he was arrested on December 19, 1979, on charges of 'espionage' and 'collaboration' with the Central Intelligence Agency and sentenced to life imprisonment. Amirentajam and his associates denied these allegations. In a 1998 interview with the Jameh newspaper, he stated that as the 'person responsible for negotiating and corresponding with all embassies' in Iran, he had conducted 'official and legal' correspondence with the U.S. embassy as well. He mentioned that 'those who occupied the embassy used these letters as evidence of espionage against the government of the time and against me. There was absolutely nothing else, absolutely.' Mehdi Bazargan, the prime minister, and Ebrahim Yazdi, the foreign minister of the provisional government, defended him in court. Amirentajam stated that the court officials 'were not familiar with the alphabet of political correspondence' and interpreted the use of the word 'Dear' as having private relations with the U.S. ambassador. Ebrahim Asgarzadeh and Mohsen Mir Damadi, two members of the central council of the 'Imam Line' students, announced in recent years that there was no document regarding Amirentajam's espionage. The collection of a letter for the dissolution of the Assembly of Experts was another charge against Abbas Amirentajam. In 2013, Amirentajam visited his judge, Mohammad Mohammadi Gilani, in the hospital. In response to criticism from human rights activist Shadi Sadr, he wrote that 'there was wisdom in this visit, and it was an exercise in forgiveness and overlooking mistakes without forgetting those mistakes.' This political prisoner stated that he had been imprisoned for 15 years in Evin, Qezel Hesar, and Gohardasht prisons and was transferred to a safe house of the Ministry of Intelligence in January 1995 until agents brought him to his relatives' home in December 1996 and did not return him to prison. He was born in 1932 in Tehran and held a degree in electrical engineering from the Technical Faculty of Tehran University and a master's degree in engineering from the United States. In 2002, a two-volume book titled 'Beyond the Accusation' was published by Abbas Amirentajam, recounting his memories from detention to trial.