Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first president after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution who fled Tehran after being impeached for challenging the growing power of clerics as the nation became a theocracy, died Saturday. He was 88.
Among a sea of black-robed Shiite clerics, Banisadr stood out for his Western-style suits and a background so French that it was in philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that he confided his belief he’d be Iran’s first president some 15 years before it happened.
Those differences only isolated him as the nationalist sought to implement a socialist style economy in Iran underpinned by a deep Shiite faith instilled in him by his cleric father.
Source: Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran’s first president after 1979 revolution, dies
