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Martyr Asadollah Lajevardi, the then chief prosecutor of Tehran, said Mohammad Kachouei was martyred due to his magnanimity. |
Name: Mohammad Kachouei
Son of: Ramezan
Date of Birth: 1950
Place of Birth: Haji Abad, Qom
Date of Martyrdom: June 29, 1981 (8 Tir, 1360)
Born in 1950, Mohammad Kachouei continued his studies till the sixth grade in elementary school, but financial problems forced him to leave school and work in a bookbinding shop. There, he became familiar with Mohammad Bokharaei, a member of the Islamic Coalition Party (ICP), a conservative Islamist political party in Iran, founded in 1963 at the suggestion of Ayatollah Khomeini as a political and military wing of the bazaar, and joined the group.
Kachouei later participated in the religious circles and attended the classes of Ayatollahs Khamenei, Beheshti, Motahhari, and resorted to political activities and struggles.
He has been arrested twice by SAVAK for his anti-Shah struggles in 1972 and 1974 and he was severely tortured. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the latter. Eventually, in 1977 after the continued pressure from the UN Human Rights Commission and political changes in Ian, Kachouei was pardoned and released from prison along with many other political prisoners.
After the victory of Islamic Revolution, when the welcoming committee of Imam Khomeini was formed he became responsible for keeping law and order at Refah School. When the school closed, Kachouei accepted the wardenship of Evin Prison.
As the first warden of Evin Prison after the victory of Islamic Revolution, Mohammad Kachouei played a decisive role in dismantling the terrorist Forqan Group and guiding its members to repentance.
Although his name was on the terror list of Furqan Group, his humanitarian behavior with members of the terrorist group played an important role in their guidance and paved the way for repentance of many deceived members.
One of his friends says, "martyr Kachouei believed that prisoners should simply be treated with utmost courtesy in order to be corrected."
Following the tragedy of 7 Tir when MKO blew up the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and killed seventy-three leading officials of the Islamic Republic, members of the terrorist MKO group decided to stage riots to free those distinguished members of the group detained in prisons.
When the MKO prisoners received the news of the terrorist attack, they inflamed the situation at the prison.
In order to control the situation and admonish MKO prisoners, Ayatollah Mohammadi Gilani, judge of Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Court, along with Asadollah Lajevardi, the then chief prosecutor of Tehran, gathered all of them in prison yard.
Kazem Afjei, one of the members of MKO group, who had already taken a gun, jumped in to kill both Lajevardi and Ayatollah Gilani.
Kachouei saved the lives of Lajevardi and Ayatollah Gilani by jumping in front of the MKO assassin.
Later, Asadollah Lajevardi said that Kachouei was martyred due to his magnanimity.
What follows is an excerpt from official MKO announcements praising Afjei for his suicide operation:
On 26 June 1981, at the very beginning of the glorious armed revolutionary struggle of MKO against the regime, the rage in the heart of Evin prison came out of the gun of victorious Mojahed Mohammad Kazem Afjei and ripped apart the chest of Kachouei, the Head of Evin prison. Following this act of bravery, the name of the first suicide martyr was inscribed on the red tablet of everlasting MKO martyrs.