“40 years ago, the Iranian regime tortured and executed Jewish community leader Albert Danielpour. They made up several charges fueled by antisemitism. The regime has executed hundreds of Iranians because of their beliefs. We condemn all targeting and killings based on religion” said Ortagus.
40 years ago, the Iranian regime tortured and executed Jewish community leader Albert Danielpour. They made up several charges fueled by anti-Semitism. The regime has executed hundreds of Iranians because of their beliefs. We condemn all targeting and killings based on religion.
— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) June 7, 2020
On Thursday, the Los Angeles-based American Persian-Jewish journalist Karmel Melamed reported in the Forward exclusive comments from Hilda Hay, the wife of Danialpour.
“Overnight I became a young widow. My young children, who were ages five, seven and nine, lost their father, and we became poor when the Khomeini regime confiscated all of my husband’s assets,” said Hay.
She added that “My husband was an incredibly kind-hearted and generous man,” said Hay. “He did fundraising for hospitals and non-profit groups in Iran and for other charitable causes in Israel regularly. He helped both Jews and non-Jews.”
Hay is lives in in Los Angeles and is in her 70’s. Melamed has gone to great lengths on social media and via his journalism to expose the Iranian regime’s state-sponsored antisemitism, persecution of Iranian Jews and the regime's Holocaust denial.
According to The Forward article, “the Danialpour family’s ideal life slowly fell apart in February 1979. Agents of the new Ayatollah Khomeini regime abruptly arrested Danialpour and imprisoned him on charges of being an enemy of the state. After five months in prison, Danialpour signed over his businesses and properties to the regime as a form of bail and was released.”
Hay said that “My husband was a professional attorney. He believed the new regime would eventually follow some sort of law and order,” adding that “He did not want to leave Iran and he always said ‘I have done nothing wrong in this country to be arrested again.’”
The Forward report said Danialpour was arrested again in 1980 .
Hay told the paper that the regime charged Danialpour with being a Zionist spy “who sucked the nation’s blood.”
Hay said her husband the regime imposed physical and psychological torture on him in two prison, according to the Forward.
Danialpour’s now 45-year-old son Davar told the Forward that “I was only five years old, but I remember going to visit him in the jail because that was the last time we ever saw him again.”
Davar added that “He looked like he had been tortured, and he knew it was getting to the point where was going to be executed.”
Iran’s “hanging judge,” Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, charged Danialpour with additional bogus crime of smuggling opium, wrote the paper. Khalkhali ordered Danialpour’s execution, wrote the Forward. He was “shot point-blank in the side of his head.”
Hay said “I just could not believe he was executed,” adding “It did not register with me until our relatives arrived at our home crying and saying they heard the news of Albert’s execution on the radio.”