Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – August 21, 1982

I was at home all day. I telephoned Mr [Seyed Hossein] Mousavi Tabrizi. It turned out that the replacement of Mr [Asadollah] Laghzhordi [Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran] is under review. Early in the evening, Dr Hadi [Najafabadi], [Seyed Mahmoud] Daeii and Hadi Khamenei, who have been appointed by the Imam to look into the state of the prisons, came and gave a report. The conditions are not good and the prison capacity is less than the number of detainees; more than fifty per cent of the current situation stems from this issue, and some of it is also related to the officials' anger towards the terrorists. Then Mr Laghordi and his colleagues came and made their defence. Part of it was convincing and part was unacceptable. They have banned construction within four hundred metres of Evin without a law.

The Prime Minister also telephoned two or three times about the names of the one hundred MPs who had signed the motion of no confidence in the Housing Minister, and, with the impeachment stalled, had asked him to replace the minister. He feels it is necessary for the minister to defend himself.

I spent some time reading and replying to letters and went through the reports. Mr Mohsen Rezaei phoned from the front, reported from Kharg and said that they had fired twenty-four missiles so far, only two of which had hit their targets.