Sadegh Khalkhali
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Hujjat al-Islam Sadeq Givi aka Sadegh Khalkhali (Persian: صادق خلخالی)(July 27, 1926 – November 26, 2003) was a hardline Twelver Shi'a cleric of the Islamic Republic of Iran who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution" that earned him a reputation as Iran's "hanging judge". A farmer's son born in Givi (Ardabil Province, Iran) in appearance Khalkhali was "a small, rotund man with a pointed beard, kindly smile, and a high-pitched giggle." He was married with a son.
On February 24, 1979, Khalkhali was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to be the Sharia ruler (حاکم شرع in Persian) to overlook the courts and make Islamic rulings, some of which were death sentences.
Khalkhali is infamous for ordering the executions of many prominent Iranian officials of the Pahlavi era, especially Amir Abbas Hoveida, the Shah's long time prime minister, and Nematollah Nassiri, a former head of SAVAK. By trying Hoveida, Khalkhali effectively undermined the ambitions of Mehdi Bazargan, the provisional prime minister following the Islamic Revolution, who disapproved of the Islamic Revolutionary Court and sought to establish the Revolution's reputation for justice and moderation. Most of the condemned did not have access to a lawyer or a jury. His controversial style of justice resulted in people giving him the nickname "Kholkholi" (crazy).
At the height of the Iran hostage crisis in 1980, Khalkhali appeared on television poking the charred bodies of the crews of U.S. helicopters which crashed in the desert on the botched rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw.
He later investigated and ordered the execution of many activists for federalism in Kurdistan and Turkmen Sahra, and then drug traffickers. In an interview, he personally confirmed ordering more than 100 executions, although many sources believe that by the time of his death, he had sent 8,000 men and women to their deaths. In some cases he was the executioner, where he executed his victims using machine guns.
Khalkhali was elected as representative of Qom in Islamic Consultative Assembly for two terms, and was removed from power upon Khomeini's death in 1989.
Khalkhali had a keen devotion to Islam and the Arab culture.