Sabeti and Torture in SAVAK

Parviz Sabeti[1] was a high ranking security officer in the Iranian intelligence service SAVAK ( Sazeman-e Attela'at Va Amniat-e Keshvar ( Organization for the information and protection of the country ). Sabeti was Head of Department III or domestic intelligence. He hired in 1957 as a political analyst in SAVAK.

He recently has had 160 hours interview with Mr. Erfan Ghaneie fard who published a book called “Dar Damgahe Hadeseh“ or in Incident Net who alleged that there was not any Torture attempt in prison by SAVAK. This allegation is not true and there are many people in Iran and out side who are ready to give withness statement that they have tortured during their improsenment in Shah regime.

I have been tortured previously in prison, before revolution in Iran by Parviz  Sabeti who is now in the US and working closely with CIA. He was head of Special Unit for Combating Terrorism which conducted brutal methods of torture on me and other prisoners during my third arrest in September 1976 and before my conviction when I was student in the University. Actually my interrogator was called Arash (Feridoun Tavangary) who was supervised by Parviz Sabety, but in two occasions he ordered to torture me when Arash was absent and one of them was on a weekend vacation. َArash line manager called Rasouli (Naser Nozari) who currently lives in the US also present in these ocassions. This could be confirmed by his different hand writing in my file when he questioned me. I was withness of torture which he imposed to other as well.

I was tortured in many ways either physically or mentally between September and December 1976 when I kept in solitary confinement before my conviction in the court in the early 1977. Arash was arrested after revolution in 1979 and found guilty in the court and was executed, but Sabeti escaped to US and he is currently a businessman apparent, but there are many strong evidences that he is working for the CIA and even there are strong facts (in Persian) that he is already getting money ($ 50000 monthly) from CIA to provide information from his contacts either inside or outside of Iran.[2]

Iran's secret police SAVAK was originally a kind of combination of CIA and FBI and had three departments, which were responsible for social, economic and political analysis. Relatively quickly Parviz Sabeti was head of department of political importance. The Department has written two different types of reports: a daily top-secret "report in three copies, one copy for the Shah, a copy to the head of SAVAK and a copy to the Prime Minister. The second type of report were special reports "only for the eyes of the Shah", which dealt with selected questions of internal security. These special reports, there were, among other things, which Sabeti owed ​​his later reputation.

In 1969 it came under the Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda to a reorganization of the SAVAK. The Department of Parviz Sabeti was merged with the Department to combat subversive groups. Under the communist subversive groups were Tudeh Party and communist guerrilla groups , the movements of the National Front , and other Kurdish separatist movements and Islamic radicals such as the Fedayeen-e Islam and the Mojahedin-e Khalq understood.

In an interview broadcast on Iranian television was a "senior security officer," Parviz Sabeti was meant to comment on the subversion of the former intelligence chief Teymur Bakhtiar. Sabeti said that he satisfied clear evidence that the Western oil companies supported Teymur Bakhtiar financially to torpedo the policy advocated by the Shah of higher oil prices. Sabeti spoke further that directed against the Iranian government student protest movements at home and abroad would be led by extremist groups, and that they are supported by Western political movements, because they accepted that the development of Iran to an industrial nation as a direct threat to their economies . After the American and British embassies had complained to the Iranian government about the alleged falsehoods, there was a statement from the Iranian side, that these statements were based on documents that had been found at Teymur Bakhtiar.

At the beginning of the seventies, a new "pecial Unit for Combating Terrorism" was founded, whose management was formally a de facto military but at Parviz Sabeti. It was this special section, which developed a notorious reputation for torture and brutal methods that were later taken in conjunction with the entire SAVAK. With the growing criticism of the torture methods of SAVAK by foreign lawyers and human rights organizations, the power of the SAVAK was circumcised. General Nematollah Nassiri, who headed the intelligence service was 13 years, by Major General Nasser Moghadam replaced. 

Parviz Sabeti was convinced that the proposed political liberalization could jeopardize the entire political system of Iran. After Jimmy Carter had won the presidential election in the U.S., and therefore it was clear that growing pressure on the Shah to liberalize the political system would continue, wrote Sabeti a long report, which should be discussed similarly controversial, as his first report of 1961 on "Free elections in Iran." 

Sabeti was the situation in 1976 for much more dangerous than the 1961st The opposition has organized more essential. A key factor to the existing risk are the militant groups who had undergone training in foreign military training camps. A policy of liberalization could cause the entire system to collapse, Sabeti wrote. As 1961 was full of criticism of the Shah Sabetis negative analysis. "Believe Sabeti about that the White Revolution would have no effect? ​​"The Shah decided this time against the Council Sabetis and began in 1977 with a policy of "open political space" , of how Sabeti had predicted, a wave of demonstrations and end of 1978 to the collapse of the constitutional monarchy in Iran led.

Yet in May 1978, Sabeti was convinced that the followers of Khomeini organized demonstrations could be terminated by the use of force measures. He sent to the Shah a 1,500 names comprehensive list and asked to arrest the subject on the list of persons to be allowed. The Shah reduced the list of arresting people for a few hundred. The arrests began and it went quiet again, first one in the country. But Prime Minister Jamshid Amuzegar insisted that the detainees would be released immediately because he wanted a voice to the calls by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and especially of his human rights policy. Those arrested were released and the political unrest should the burning of the Cinema Rex in Abadan, with 400 deaths reach new heights.

As the end of 1978, the political situation in Iran had reached the boiling point, hit Sabeti before the Shah, declare state of emergency, dissolve the parliament, to close the British and the American embassy, ​​and with an iron fist to take action against the opposition movement. If law and order would be restored, could the necessary reforms to be addressed. The Shah rejected the proposal Sabetis as "childish" from.  A few weeks later left Sabeti Iran and lives since then in other countries.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has released thousands of documents dating from Parviz Sabeti and made ​​available for research. In a given after the Islamic Revolution interview, Parviz Sabeti: "The Shah may have had his faults, but when you consider what came before it, and what came after him, and when one considers that governments neighbors that Iran possess, the system of the Shah was the best thing that could expect Iran.[3]

Ex Savak director Parviz Sabeti allegation about lack of torture in SAVAK prisons in the first interview after 33 years is baseless and it is a joke for laughing. During an interview with the program Ofogh of VOA Persian television organized by the journalist Erfan Ghanei Fard  , the number two of the security service Savak  during Monarchic regime Parviz Sabeti  , talked for the first time about a dispute between him and the PM Jamshid Amouzegar and opposition of the Shah to mass arrests . Sabeti who was fired shortly before revolution and a warren is issued to be arrested at that time , lives in the United States tells for the first time  his memoirs in a book published  by Ketab Bookshop in Los Angeles California and a text of the full interview is here.[4]

Parviz Sabeti is a torturer, serial killer, and a serious criminal who should be tried for his crimes against humanity, but a human monster and a savage criminal like Parviz Sabeti can live in the US !! It’s very shameful. I wrote previously a Persian article to incourge those people who tortured during Shah Regime by SAVAK make a court suite against Sabeti and give their witness statement in a legal way to prosecute him in the US or EU countries who are a member of Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Fortunately there is an NGO which could and would like to provide some useful documents. He is responsible for torture which has conducted during his superintendency and killed many arrested people and I encourage all former political prisoners who tortured by SAVAK should give evidence either inside or outside Iran in the US and Europe against him.