The Night of the Ayatollahs

‘I killed [former Iranian Premier] Hoveida, you know,” Ayatollah Khalkhali boasted to V. S. Naipaul, who reports his encounter with Khomeini’s “hanging ayatollah” in his book Among the Believers. As Khalkhali’s sycophants, squatting on the carpet, doubled up in laughter, Naipaul queried, “You killed him yourself?” No, Khalkhali admitted, the job was actually done by the son of another famous ayatollah. “But I have the gun,” he proudly added.

What of his early life? “I was a shepherd as a boy. Right now I know how to cut off a sheep’s head. … I know everything. … I am very clever, very intelligent.”

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Norman B. Hannah

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‘I killed [former Iranian Premier] Hoveida, you know,” Ayatollah Khalkhali boasted to V. S. Naipaul, who reports his encounter with Khomeini’s “hanging ayatollah” in his book Among the Believers. As Khalkhali’s sycophants, squatting on the carpet, doubled up in laughter, Naipaul queried, “You killed him yourself?” No, Khalkhali admitted, the job was actually done by the son of another famous ayatollah. “But I have the gun,” he proudly added.

What of his early life? “I was a shepherd as a boy. Right now I know how to cut off a sheep’s head. … I know everything. … I am very clever, very intelligent.”