Excerpt from the Memoirs of Mehdi Farhoudi

After the Victory

Selected by: Faezeh Sasanikhah
Translated by Kianoush Borzouei

2025-3-4

One or two months after the victory of the revolution, I went to the Presidential Office. Members of the IRGC were present there as well. I had been entrusted with certain assignments by Martyr Chamran. Among the present people there, were Mr. Ebrahim Yazdi and Abdolali Bazargan. Since Abdolali’s father was well acquainted with me, he granted me certain authorities.

The first task I undertook was to go to the former SAVAK headquarters. Alongside gentlemen such as Dr. Nejad Hosseinian, Majid Haddad Adel, Alireza Mohseni, Ali Azizi, Haj Kazem, Moayeri, and other companions, we formally took control of the premises.

Within the building, there was a section known as the Center for Documents, which the Monafeqin were particularly eager to infiltrate. A group had already gained access to it before us. It is worth mentioning that SAVAK had numerous undercover divisions. Upon entering the rooms, we discovered that their Venetian blinds were made of cement. The offices had been designed in such a manner that each department operated in complete isolation, with employees only familiar with members of their immediate circle.

One of SAVAK’s facilities, known as Bagh-e Mehran, was an immense complex. The agents had never anticipated that we would gain access to it. They had concealed substantial amounts of money, gold, and jewelry within desk drawers and safes. In most drawers, we also found large supplies of tranquilizers and sleeping pills.

Opening the safes proved to be a formidable challenge. Using grenades was not an option, as it would have destroyed critical documents. Eventually, we located one of their former employees who specialized in unlocking these vaults. He was brought from his residence and successfully cracked open the safes, granting us access to invaluable documents, as well as gold and jewelry. Many significant records were also hidden in drawers, including an entire safe filled with kartaks—an extensive card-based filing system. SAVAK was structured into 12 to 13 distinct divisions.

The first thing I did was retrieve my own file and photographs. I wanted to see who had informed on me and what details had been documented regarding my life.

Among the files, I uncovered the case of Ali Jahan-Ara, a member of the Mansouroun group, who had been arrested in Isfahan alongside gentlemen such as Nematzadeh and Basirzadeh. He was martyred under SAVAK’s brutal torture, and his family had been searching for him ever since. I retrieved his photograph from the archives and located his file.

The same was true for Mr. Nematzadeh (who later became Iran’s Cultural Attaché in Lebanon). During the Shah’s reign, he had spent several years living secretly. SAVAK had disseminated his photograph to airlines, travel agencies, and passenger terminals, keeping him under constant surveillance. I managed to retrieve his file from among the documents as well.

Before the Iran-Iraq war had even begun, the family of Martyr Jahan-Ara came to our home. I handed them the documents pertaining to Ali. The truth was that he had been tortured to death by SAVAK, but his family had been misled into believing that he had been released after refusing to cooperate with his comrades. He had been a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran.

SAVAK’s administrative structure was immensely sophisticated and highly advanced. They had infiltrated even primary and secondary schools, recruiting students as informants for a mere 10 to 20 tomans per month. To illustrate, during my high school years, I once wrote an essay that caught their attention. One of my classmates, who was receiving between 5 to 10 tomans a month from SAVAK, reported me to them. The same mechanism was in place across universities, both domestically and abroad. SAVAK had informants everywhere, constantly relaying intelligence in an attempt to preserve the regime’s authority.^[1]