Plot Uncovered

Confession before the camera

"I am shamed before the nation. Free I me or execute me." With that dramatic statement, former Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh confessed on Iranian television last week that he had participated in a plot to overthrow the government and assassinate its spiritual leader, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Looking tired and drawn, Ghotbzadeh told a bizarre story in which he implicated an other powerful religious leader, the Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Shariatmadari. The plot purportedly called for Khomeini's house to be bombed or rocketed while he was meeting with government leaders. After that, attacks were to be launched against headquarters of the police, the Revolutionary Guards and radio and television stations. Two army officers with whom Ghotbzadeh conspired had apparently been government agents.

Once one of Khomeini's closest asso ciates, Ghotbzadeh, 46, became director of radio and television in the first revolutionary government, then Foreign Minister during the American hostage crisis. When the Islamic Republic Party came to power after winning parliamentary elections in 1980, he left the government. He was arrested soon after, accused of making an inflammatory statement on television, which had undermined national unity. He was released three days later when Khomeini intervened. Ghotbzadeh was arrested again two weeks ago in connection with the proposed coup. Iran's top military judge, Hojjatoleslam Mohammed Reyshahri, said that 45 other conspirators had been charged. Ghotbzadeh, he said, was not the ringleader ("for he is really stupid"), but he could face execution if found guilty.

In an unprecedented step, the religious leadership stripped Shariatmadari of his title of marja ' (guide), the highest position in the Shi'ite Muslim priesthood. The ayatullah, 78 and ailing, was apparently not arrested. It is forbidden under Islamic law to execute a religious leader of Shariatmadari's stature. His downfall, however, was seen as another victory for the religious hardliners. Under the constitution, the successor for the role faqih, or supreme theologian, must be chosen before Khomeini dies. But the process has bogged down in a morass of clerical rivalries. At the time the alleged plot was revealed, some of the more radical clergy were trying to limit the powers of the senior, conservative grand ayatullahs like Shariatmadari.

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