War on Drugs

A judge gets tough

In a crowded Tehran courtroom, five frightened defendants faced the empty bench. The judge, a scowling, bearded figure who was also acting as prosecutor, circled behind them and cursed, "I shall exterminate you vermin!" Then, without permitting a word to be spoken in their defense, he meted out the sentences. "Those two--execution," he barked. "This one --life imprisonment. The other two--100 lashes each." As Islamic guards led out the two men to be whipped, the judge called out after them, "Remember, every lash must draw blood."

With that five-minute trial, Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, Iran's notorious "hanging judge," dispensed summary justice to five more accused drug traffickers. In just six weeks, Khalkhali's firing squads have executed 120 convicted opium and heroin dealers.

Khalkhali's efforts have drawn criticism from some political parties in Tehran, but his ferocity has won him wide popularity. It has enhanced his already considerable political power as a leader of the militant clerical faction of parliament that often opposes the moderate government of President Abolhassan Banisadr.

The Iranian heroin problem has assumed runaway proportions. According to government figures, there are now 3 million addicts, nearly one in every twelve Iranians. Reason: in the 16 chaotic months since the fall of the Shah, police enforcement has been spotty at best, and narcotics rings have been able to operate at will. Thus the habit that was once peculiar to Iran's upper classes, and gripped members of the Shah's own family, has filtered down through Iranian society. Says a high school teacher in Tehran, appalled at the extent of addiction among his students: "Heroin and opium were the only commodities that became inexpensive and plentiful after the revolution."

Cheap, high-potency Iranian heroin has also been turning up in increasing quantities in the U.S. and Western Europe. In fact, Iran and the rest of Southwest Asia are fast becoming the world's leading producers of the drug, surpassing Mexico and the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia. Lacking Tehran's cooperation in containing the traffic, Western drug-enforcement agencies have concentrated on tracing and stopping shipments after they leave Iran.

They are having some success. Using Farsi-speaking agents to track smugglers, U.S. narcotics officers have confiscated heroin with a street value of some $94 million in the past five months. French police two weeks ago arrested Jean Jehan, the "silver fox," who had figured in the French-connection narcotics ring and had recently resurfaced in the Southwest Asian traffic.

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