Chief of Shah-era security agency hit with $225m lawsuit over Iran torture allegations

A former chief of Iran’s notorious Shah-era security and intelligence agency SAVAK has been hit with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over his alleged torture of former Iranian dissidents and detainees, after decades of hiding from the public eye.

According to media reports, a $225 million lawsuit was filed in a federal court in the city of Orlando, Florida, on 10 February, targeting former deputy head of SAVAK, Parviz Sabeti, over his alleged involvement in and oversight of torture across Iran during the 1970s.

Having reportedly relocated to Florida in the United States following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Sabeti became a real estate developer, keeping a low public profile over the subsequent decades. His open participation in a rally in California against the current Iranian government in February 2023, however, marked his public re-emergence, alerting alleged victims of his history in SAVAK who now live outside Iran.

In their lawsuit, the anonymous plaintiffs said they were detained by SAVAK and subjected to “extreme violence including beatings, whippings, stress positions, electrocution, hanging by the wrists, [and] hanging of weights from genitals” during Sabeti’s leading role in the agency.

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Aside from his alleged involvement in torture, Sabeti is also accused of having far-reaching effects even beyond the pre-1979 regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi by being responsible for the current authorities’ use of similar practice, with the plaintiffs claiming he “is widely recognised as an architect of the institutionalisation of torture” in the country.

“Sabeti not only had knowledge of the pervasive use of torture applied on behalf of the shah’s regime, but was a main advocate for its application,” they said, insisting that the current clerical regime in Tehran is influenced by his practices and “has continued SAVAK’s policy of repression, censorship, torture, and executions.”

With the plaintiffs keeping their identities anonymous due to their apparent fear of reprisal over the legal action, they even claimed Sabeti has connections with Iran’s post-Shah Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), meaning that alleged collaboration “provides a reasonable basis for fear by plaintiffs” who live outside Iran.

Another former senior SAVAK official, named Ahamad Farasati, is reported to have rejected the lawsuit’s accusations by telling Radio Farda that Sabeti was largely involved in political affairs rather than interrogations. “I assure you that Sabeti never provided guidance or directions on – God forbid – abusing suspects and he himself is staunchly opposed to it.”