What Is to Happen to Me Tonight?

The Iranians subject a TIME reporter to a mock execution

The parades are over, the banners and yellow ribbons have been taken down, and America's freed hostages are settling in. Yet the aftermath of their ordeal continues to capture headlines. An American imprisoned in Iran for eight months, Freelance Journalist Cynthia Dwyer, was tried as a spy last week; she was reportedly found guilty early this week, sentenced to time already served and ordered deported. Marine Sergeant Gregory Persinger filed a lawsuit against the Iranian government seeking at least $140,000 in damages suffered because of his captivity. And new details about how the Iranian revolutionary government conducts its business continue to come to light.

One such story, the plight of TIME Reporter Raji Samghabadi, has until now remained secret. A native of Iran who taught himself English by reading Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Samghabadi was managing editor of an English-language daily in Tehran. In March 1979, he joined TIME'S Tehran bureau and stayed on after the magazine's correspondents were expelled at the end of that year. Because of concerns for his safety, his name has been kept out of the magazine for nearly a year. Those fears turned out to be well grounded. Samghabadi was arrested and terrorized in an effort to use him to frame Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, former Foreign Minister and a close associate of the Ayatullah Khomeini, as an agent of the CIA. He refused and was subjected to a mock execution. Now safe in the U.S., Samghabadi tells of his arrest--and flight:

Last Nov. 4, as the polling booths were opening in the U.S. and the sun was setting in Tehran, I had just finished reporting a story on terms set by the Majlis for the release of the American hostages. To relax, I went down to the basement of the Time-Life office in Tehran to play Ping-Pong with friends.

In the middle of the game, an Islamic Guard burst in shouting "Freeze!" He ordered us to stop our game. I first thought that this was just another harassment raid, a routine feature of my work. But a cold Smith & Wesson revolver in my ribs dispelled that notion. "Upstairs," he said, "and don't talk or gesture to anyone."

The building was swarming with Islamic Guards, yelling and feinting karate kicks, who rounded up not only my friends, but also some Canadian journalists who worked down the hall. We were blindfolded, stripped of our money and papers, and forced to sit on the floor with our hands clasped behind our heads. "The spies among you will be executed tonight," one guard ominously whispered in my ear. During an hour-long wait for a minibus from the prison, the guards took pleasure in playing with the safety catches of their weapons and murmuring the spot.

After perfunctory questioning that evening at an Islamic Guards headquarters set up in the late Shah's lavish Saadabad Palace in the northern part of the city, most of the detainees were released. I was not. My questioning had scarcely begun when a guard whispered something into my interrogator's ear. "You are sure?" he replied. "Yes," answered the first. I was blindfolded again and taken to another detention center. The conversation among my guards was chilling: "Tonight? ... What's he done?

... Aha!" I helplessly crawled into the corner of my cell, brushed the roaches off the mattress on the floor, huddled in the dusty blanket, and shivered--out of fear and cold. For hours, a single question reverberated through my mind: What is to happen to me tonight?

Around 3 a.m., as the rest of the world was hearing the first reports of Ronald Reagan's electoral victory, my cell door opened. There, accompanied by an Islamic Guard, was a short mullah, about 30 years old, with a sparse beard and a black turban signifying that he was a "Seyyed," one of many clergymen who claim to be descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. "We have become skilled at catching American spies, haven't we?" he said. "You know what punishment you face." It was a flat declarative statement, not a question. "What have I done?" I protested. "I am a journalist."

"The question is not whether you are a spy," he snapped. "That has already been proven. The question is whether you want to live."

I certainly did want to live, and told him so. "Then you must sign this confession," he responded. The typewritten document not only said I was a spy but also that I was a link between former Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and the CIA. Added the mullah: "Otherwise we will execute you right now."

"But I haven't been tried," I protested, "and the confession you composed is a flagrant lie." I continued to argue. He interrupted: "I have no time to waste on haggling. Will you confess or won't you?"

When I refused again, he ordered me out of the cell. The guard in the corner unholstered his pistol. As I was led out to a courtyard, I could see five rifles glinting in the light from my cell doorway. Click, click. The guards holding them were checking the bolts. My knees turned to jelly, wobbling, unable to support me. I put a hand on each knee to support myself, breathing deeply. Said the mullah: "Listen, Ghotbzadeh is not worth it. Confess. We will make it worth your while."

Images of the revolution raced through my mind, reminding me of all the sacrifices my countrymen had made. Others had stood up for what they believed: the journalist I knew who denounced the Shah in a military court knowing it would mean certain death, those who had died resisting the dreaded SAVAK, the young children who stood over the bullet-ridden bodies of their parents during anti-Shah demonstrations and took up their chants. I thought of my father, an army officer who had been jailed and harassed for life after protesting the widespread corruption under the Shah, and my brother, who was driven insane by SAVAK torturers. I figured a fake confession would not only fail to free me but would further discredit the legitimate struggle of others. I would not tolerate this mullah imposing his own perverted will. "I won't sign," I said, straightening up.

"You are a fool," he muttered. I asked to see my family. "We will turn your body over to them," he said, telling the firing squad, "don't get him in the head."

As my hands were being tied behind me, I asked for time to pray. I made a full confession before God, occasionally speaking in French and English to confuse the guards, cataloguing my good and bad deeds and begging him to have mercy on my soul. As they blindfolded me, painful bolts of fear ripped up my thighs into my groin. I had trouble controlling my legs, keeping my balance. "You bastards will burn in hell," I muttered.

"Take aim! Fire!" The guns roared. My bladder emptied reflexively. A moment passed. I awaited the impact, searched for the pain. Another moment. Was I dead? Then there was a surge of emotion, the realization that they had not shot me. I cried uncontrollably. My blindfold was ripped off and the mullah was yelling, waving his finger in my face. But I could not hear a word. I was dazed, my vision blurred, the shouted order to fire and the crack of the rifles echoed ceaselessly in my head. I babbled insanely as they dragged me back to my cell.

Why had I been spared? I can only speculate. The mullah and guards who singled me out were obviously acting on behalf of one of the many factions that exist within the militant clergy, a group trying to discredit Ghotbzadeh. They had no official authorization to do anything to me. My wife had been frantically phoning my government sources all evening, and word probably reached my captors that powerful officials were asking after me. Failing to force a confession that would suit their needs, the unknown mullah and his men then simply abandoned me. They left me in the prison, where the authorities did not know who I was or why I was there.

I was awakened late the next morning by a guard, who had no idea of what had happened to me that night, summoning me to breakfast. I still could not speak. I finally got one word out: "Toilet." Holding the wall, I slowly made my way to where he indicated.

For the next five days, as the shock wore off, I was moved around to different prisons where no one had a clue as to why I was being held. At a center for drug pushers, a guard apologized: "We cannot figure out why they have turned you over to us." While there I was told that Ghotbzadeh had been arrested, accused of undermining national unity.

On the sixth day of captivity, I was questioned again, in yet another Islamic Guard center. A lightly bearded lad, about 22, tried to interrogate me above the babble of noise as minor government officials shouted their need for more gasoline coupons, newspaper vendors protested that they sold only Islamic papers, two men arrested for fighting resumed their fight, and a hysterical couple wailed that their daughter was missing. The setting was appropriate for the curious questioning that began: "Why have you been arrested?"

Two hours later, I was released. I was told to remain available for further questioning and not to work as a journalist. My clothes, money, and office equipment had been confiscated. Worse yet, I found that I was still not safe. "You're on a hit list," a friend inside the clerical establishment warned me. I thought at first that he was exaggerating, until I realized that I was being followed. Another contact told me: "You're a marked man. Run for your life, or go underground." It was, I realized with fear and sadness, time to leave my native land.

Since any one arm of the various groups that rule Iran seldom knows what the others are doing, I was able to get a visa to travel to Pakistan. To confuse and elude the men who were trailing me, I made numerous appointments with important government officials on my home telephone, which I knew was tapped, and laid a false trail. Then I sneaked out of my home early one morning and flew to Zahedan, in southeastern Iran. With me I took a friend, Mirza Hashem Hosseini, and his wife, whose house had been raided and looted by a gang claiming to be Islamic Guards. Also with us was another friend, Farhad Yaqubian, who had been arrested and beaten. His crime: he had dropped by to play Ping-Pong with me shortly after my office was raided.

The next day we took a bus 50 miles to the border where, as Iranian guards looked on dumbly, we walked across toward Pakistan, rejoicing to ourselves: "We made it!" It was not to be that easy. At the Pakistani post, a visiting Iranian immigration official became suspicious and demanded our passports, despite the fact that we were speaking only Urdu and English. I refused to give him mine, but he took one of my companions' passports.

After seeing that my friend did not have an exit permit, he demanded that we return to the Iranian side. "Authorities are already arranging your extradition," he said. "It is in your interest to come back on your own."

I broke into Persian: "Believe me, it is in your interest for me not to come back." I suddenly remembered the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson that I had strapped on my back and a grenade I carried in my coat pocket. I was determined not to be captured alive. The immigration official would be my first target. I looked squarely at him and said: "I like this side better. I am sick and tired of what is happening in Iran, and of so-called officials who believe they have supreme power."

Uniformed Iranian guards came over to join the argument for our return. "They're murderers," they told the Pakistani officers. "They have killed scores of innocent people." The Pakistani checkpoint commander, under a hail of obscenities from the Iranians, calmly replied: "They have valid passports and visas. I obey and enforce the law. I am not here to bandy obscenities with you." Under the protection of the senior Pakistani officer in the region, Major Javid Afrouz, a humane and professional military man, we were protected until we could hire a truck for the ride to the city of Quetta, 400 miles from the troubled border. It was the sweetest ride I have ever had.

I was still not totally free, however. I learned from people who crossed the border after me that the Iranians had put paid Afghan assassins on my trail. In addition, at the instigation of the Iranian consul in Quetta, a group of local "students" from Iran, using a van from the consulate, unsuccessfully tried to kidnap my companions from the hotel. The consul implausibly denied complicity when Pakistani authorities protested the raid. But the consul personally tried to have me arrested at the airport a couple of hours later, claiming that I was a notorious former SAVAK agent. Ludicrously enough, for all my supposed notoriety, he could not get my name right. Despite the Keystone Kops incompetence of the various Iranian agents and hotheads who had tried to detain me, I did not feel safe until I was finally airborne on my flight to Paris.

Looking back, I am more saddened than angered over the events that led me to flee my country. I have difficulty believing that so-called "men of God" would try to force an absurd confession from me, or use a mock execution in an effort to destroy a political opponent. These misguided fanatics are certainly not the clergymen who created an aura of righteousness and heroism in their struggle against the Shah's cruel and evil dictatorship. I wonder whether Ayatullah Khomeini truly knows what these cynical opportunists have done to him, to the revolution, and to Islam. Unless he moves swiftly against the architects of the new despotism in Iran, the Islamic revolution will go down in history as a tragic blunder.

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