On February 1, 1979, Mehrabad Airport was prepared for the landing of the Air France Boeing 747, which was set to bring Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader of the opponents of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, back to Iran after 14 years. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had left Tehran for Egypt just 16 days earlier, a trip that he later realized would be without return. While just a few days prior, the airport had been closed on the orders of then-Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar to prevent Khomeini's return, on February 1, permission was granted for his flight to land. Abbas Milani, a historian based in the U.S., responded to the question of whether Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was aware of the government's decision to allow Khomeini's entry, stating, "He was undoubtedly aware of the flight. He knew that Khomeini's return was actually conditional on his own departure, and weeks before that flight, the Shah was preparing to leave Iran. He had taken some of his belongings out of Iran and was aware that he would be leaving and that Khomeini was returning with the help of France and the mediation of the U.S. I have not seen the documents from the French Foreign Ministry, and I am unaware of what negotiations they conducted behind the scenes, but it is clear from the released U.S. documents that the Americans pressured for Khomeini's return to be beneficial. At that time, detailed negotiations were ongoing between Khomeini, mediated by Yazdi, and American officials in Neauphle-le-Château, and Khomeini had directly met with some American officials, such as Richard Kathem, who was a well-known CIA figure during the 28 Mordad coup and later became a university professor; there is a report of that meeting. Through Yazdi, Khomeini's representatives, such as Beheshti and others, were negotiating with the Americans and the embassy in Tehran, convincing the army to withdraw its support for the Shah and to reconcile with the clergy as the next successor. This is exactly what happened.
While Khomeini was on the flight, other passengers also returned to Iran on Flight 4721, some of whom quickly distanced themselves from what Khomeini would later call the 'Islamic Republic.' Ayatollah Hassan Lahouti was among these passengers. From 1975 to 1978, Lahouti had been imprisoned and immediately went to Neauphle-le-Château upon his release. Mohsen Sazgara commented on Lahouti's presence in Neauphle-le-Château and his relationship with Khomeini, stating, "Mr. Lahouti was an emotional man. He had been in prison for years and had been severely tortured. On the first night he arrived in Neauphle-le-Château, everyone recognized him. After the Maghrib and Isha prayers, he began to speak. He started with the phrase, 'The nights of Evin,' recounting his torture experiences. Everyone was breathless, and tears flowed from many eyes. Lahouti loved Khomeini very much. When we returned to Iran and the revolution succeeded, Lahouti received a decree from Khomeini to collect the weapons that had come into the hands of the people after the attacks on the military bases. He took my hand and said, 'I won't go without you.' I shared Mr. Lahouti's proposal with my friends from the Freedom Movement. They said to go with Mr. Lahouti and take care of this matter. Thus, I accompanied Mr. Lahouti, and the idea of a people's army that we had pursued from Paris was transformed into the IRGC for the defense of the country, which, of course, has nothing to do with those initial thoughts. I left the IRGC two or three months later and went to radio and television. However, Mr. Lahouti remained as the Imam's representative in the IRGC." Lahouti had connected with the People's Mujahedin Organization in the early 1970s and was arrested, interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned several times for this reason. While many believed he was arrested in 1981 due to his ties with the Mujahedin, Fatemeh Hashemi, daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and daughter-in-law of Hassan Lahouti, stated in 2008 that he had many criticisms of the Mujahedin and the events following the revolution. Abolhassan Banisadr commented on the reason for Lahouti's death in prison, saying, "Mr. Lahouti was very fond of Khomeini. Until his return to Iran, Khomeini had expressed interest in him. He did not play a specific role abroad. What led to his exclusion was that he went to Khomeini and said that the leaders of your Islamic Republic Party are leading you to tyranny and bloodshed; they will sacrifice you, your religion, and your revolution; they are corrupt, do not give your mind to them. Khomeini told him that first, we will deal with Banisadr, and then we will take care of them. Shortly after, Lahouti summoned one of my relatives and told him about this conversation with Khomeini. He had taken a stand against the coup plotters and openly stated this. They came for him and arrested him, and as you know, when he set foot in Evin, they made him disappear there.
"Mr. Lahouti was an emotional man. He had been in prison for years and had been severely tortured. On the first night he arrived in Neauphle-le-Château, everyone recognized him. After the Maghrib and Isha prayers, he began to speak. He started with the phrase, 'The nights of Evin,' recounting his torture experiences. Everyone was breathless, and tears flowed from many eyes. Lahouti loved Khomeini very much. When we returned to Iran and the revolution succeeded, Lahouti received a decree from Khomeini to collect the weapons that had come into the hands of the people after the attacks on the military bases. He took my hand and said, 'I won't go without you.' I shared Mr. Lahouti's proposal with my friends from the Freedom Movement. They said to go with Mr. Lahouti and take care of this matter. Thus, I accompanied Mr. Lahouti, and the idea of a people's army that we had pursued from Paris was transformed into the IRGC for the defense of the country, which, of course, has nothing to do with those initial thoughts. I left the IRGC two or three months later and went to radio and television. However, Mr. Lahouti remained as the Imam's representative in the IRGC."
Hassan Lahouti had connected with the People's Mujahedin Organization in the early 1970s and was arrested, interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned several times for this reason. While many believed he was arrested in 1981 due to his ties with the Mujahedin, Fatemeh Hashemi, daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and daughter-in-law of Hassan Lahouti, stated in 2008 that he had many criticisms of the Mujahedin and the events following the revolution. Abolhassan Banisadr commented on the reason for Lahouti's death in prison, saying, "Mr. Lahouti was very fond of Khomeini. Until his return to Iran, Khomeini had expressed interest in him. He did not play a specific role abroad. What led to his exclusion was that he went to Khomeini and said that the leaders of your Islamic Republic Party are leading you to tyranny and bloodshed; they will sacrifice you, your religion, and your revolution; they are corrupt, do not give your mind to them. Khomeini told him that first, we will deal with Banisadr, and then we will take care of them. Shortly after, Lahouti summoned one of my relatives and told him about this conversation with Khomeini. He had taken a stand against the coup plotters and openly stated this. They came for him and arrested him, and as you know, when he set foot in Evin, they made him disappear there.
Hassan Lahouti (right) in one of Khomeini's meetings in February 1979.
Hamid Lahouti, the son of Ayatollah Lahouti, told the magazine 'Shahrvand Emruz' that his father said the slogans of the revolution and the moral and religious government we promised did not align with the prevailing conditions and some of the events and statements that are being made today. Mohsen Sazgara considers Asadollah Lajevardi, the then Tehran prosecutor, to be influential in the death of Hassan Lahouti, stating, "Since Lajevardi, the bloody prosecutor of the revolution, had a bad relationship with him, especially with his sons, one or two of whom were members of the People's Mujahedin, and one was killed in the clashes with the Mujahedin; Lahouti criticized Lajevardi's prisons and tortures. Lahouti himself was arrested, and according to what both Lahouti's sons and daughters-in-law, who are daughters of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, say, Lahouti was killed in prison with poison, and this blame was directed at Khomeini, who did not bother to stand up for an old friend who cared for him and did not prevent Lajevardi from executing him. Of course, Lajevardi had a very close relationship with Ahmad Khomeini during the period when he was killing people; I heard this from Beheshti, and Ahmad Khomeini had a lot of authority over Khomeini, like a chief of staff whom Khomeini trusted very much. Therefore, Lajevardi had a strong lobby close to Khomeini, and I think in the case of Lahouti's killing, Ahmad had somehow involved Khomeini. According to Hamid Lahouti, his father was arrested at noon on the sixth of Aban and was killed in Evin prison before 9 PM that night. According to him, the forensic report stated that the cause of Hassan Lahouti's death was not a heart attack but poisoning with strychnine, a poison that was also mentioned in the investigation of Ahmad Khomeini's death on the evening of March 15, 1995. However, Abbas Milani believes that Ayatollah Khomeini was too powerful to have left the field to his son Ahmad Khomeini: "The collection of documents related to the negotiations within Khomeini's household, which seem to have all been recorded, has not yet been published, and I do not have access to them. But in my opinion, it is impossible that any of these significant executions, from Hoveyda to Qotbzadeh to Lahouti, occurred without the direct involvement and approval of Ayatollah Khomeini. Ahmad Khomeini, especially in the first one or two years, was not significant enough to make these decisions. In the last one or two years, because his father was ill, he played a more prominent role. Therefore, in the first two years, all important decisions were made by Khomeini himself, and in my opinion, there is no doubt that Khomeini was in favor of harsh measures and believed that opponents should be eliminated, especially those who rose against him and the rule of the jurist. The image that some try to create that there was a golden era and that during that golden era these actions did not take place is, in my opinion, a completely false image. It was by Khomeini's own order that in 1988, nearly four thousand people were executed by killers like Raisi. How can it be said that at the beginning of the revolution, when he was consolidating power, he wanted to forgive everyone? Where he says we made a mistake, we should have executed these opponents without even trying them, and once we identified them, it was enough to execute them. Accepting that such a person would forgive someone accused of rising against him is difficult and, in fact, impossible for me." Perhaps the only person that Ayatollah Khomeini forgave for his sins was Hossein Khomeini, the only son of Mustafa Khomeini among the passengers of the 747. There is little news about Hossein Khomeini in the newspapers of the first months after the landing of the Paris-Tehran flight, but the story of him drawing a weapon in support of Abolhassan Banisadr's presidency was reported long after, to the extent that Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi, a principled political figure in Iran, said in an interview with the Islamic Republic's Channel 3: "In respect to the Imam, we cherish the children of the Imam and those related to him, we maintain their dignity, even if we feel that there are mistakes and violations, the dignity of the Imam is such that we have this respect. But there was a grandson of his, who was the son of the late martyr Haj Agha Mustafa, whose behavior led the Imam to confine him, even to a kind of house arrest, and now I want to share a memory from some friends that is beyond our comprehension, that the Imam was informed that in Mashhad, the committee members had arrested him, he drew a weapon at the committee members, and the Imam became very angry and told the late Eshraqi to tell the committee members...