Shahriar Shafiq

Shahriar Shafiq (Persian: شهریار شفیق‎; 15 March 1945 – 7 December 1979) was an Iranian Imperial Navy Captain and a member of the House of Pahlavi. He was the son of Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, twin sister of the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Shahriar Shafiq
Shafiq in 1978
Born15 March 1945
Cairo, Egypt
Died7 December 1979(1979-12-07) (aged 34)
Paris, France
SpouseMaryam Eghbal
IssueNader Shafiq
Dara Shafiq
HousePahlavi
FatherAhmad Shafiq
MotherAshraf Pahlavi
Personal details
Alma materRazi High School
Military service
Branch/serviceImperial Iranian Navy
Years of service1963–1979
RankCaptain

His military career lasted from 1963 until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He stayed until March 1979 when he had to escape Iran after months of fighting the revolutionaries.

Shahriar Shafiq resided in Paris until 7 December 1979, when he was assassinated by agents of the Islamic Republic.

Early life and education

Shafiq was born in Cairo on 15 March 1945.[1][2] He was the son of Ashraf Pahlavi and Ahmad Shafiq, and brother of Azadeh Shafiq.[1]

Shafiq was educated at the Royal Navy College in Dartmouth, the United Kingdom.[3]

Personal life

In 1967, Shafiq married Maryam Eghbal, the Christian daughter of Manouchehr Eghbal, who had married at age 18 to Mahmoud Reza Pahlavi in October 1964, one of his uncles and a half-brother of the Shah.[1][4] Shafiq and Eghbal had two sons:[1]

  • Nader Shafiq (born 15 March 1968)
  • Dara Shafiq (born 1970)
Styles of
Shahriar Shafiq
Reference styleHis Highness
Spoken styleYour Highness
Alternative styleSir

Career and activities

Shafiq was an Imperial Iranian Navy Captain.[5] He and his cousin Prince Kamyar Pahlavi, son of Abdul Reza Pahlavi, were the only members of the Pahlavi Dynasty who chose military careers. Shafiq was the highest-ranking military officer in the Pahlavi family.[6] He worked in the navy of Iran from 1963 to 1979.[7] He served as the commander of the Persian Gulf fleet of Hovercraft before the 1979 revolution.[8]

Additionally, Shafiq was the head of Judo and Karate federation of Iran during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah.[9]

Later years and assassination

After the revolution of February 1979, he was the only member of the Pahlavi dynasty who stayed in Iran and kept fighting against the revolutionaries, up to the point when he had to flee in a small boat from the Persian Gulf to Kuwait, under heavy fire.[8] He fled Iran in March 1979.[5]

After leaving Iran, Shafiq first went to the United States.[6] Then he joined his family in Paris, France, on 14 November 1979,[6] and began organizing a resistance movement against the Islamic Republic.[10] He founded the group, Iran Azad (Free Iran), which was later led by his sister Azadeh with whom he was living in Paris.[11][12] They both acted as the Pahlavi family’s principal spokesmen.[13] In Iran, Islamic judge Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali tried and sentenced him and other members of the Pahlavi family in absentia to death in a secret trial in the spring of 1979.[6][10]

He was assassinated in Paris on 7 December 1979, being shot twice in the head by agents of the Islamic Republic on the Rue Pergolese,[14][5][15] outside his mother's home.[16] He was aged 34.[12] The attack was carried out by a masked gunman.[6] Ayatollah Khalkhali claimed that the assassination was carried out by one of his death squads[6] and therefore, Shafiq was the first victim of Iran's death squads.[17] The Muslim Liberation Group announced that it was responsible for the assassination.[18]

Shahriar's body was not buried, but embalmed and moved to New York where it was kept by his mother.[19]

References
  1. "The Pahlavi Dynasty". Iran. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  2. Ulbrich, Jeffrey (10 December 1979). "Killer of Shah's Nephew Hunted". The Virgin Islands Daily News. Paris. AP. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  3. Kadivar, Cyrus (31 October 2003). "Villa Dupont". Iranian. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  4. "People Make News". The Calgary Herald. 22 October 1964. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  5. "Mr. Shahriar Shafiq". OMID. Archived from the original on 20 July 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  6. "Shah's nephew assassinated by 'death squad'". Middlesboro Daily News. Paris. UPI. 8 December 1979. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  7. "Shah says his nephew was gallant naval officer". Toledo Blade. New York. Reuters. 7 December 1979. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  8. Kadivar, Cyrus (December 2003 – January 2003). "Dialogue of Murder". Rouzegar (8). Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  9. "Pictures". Sapia. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  10. "Secret police blamed for slaying". The Telegraph Daily. Paris. UPI. 9 December 1979. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  11. Anoushiravan Ehteshami (1995). After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic. New York: Routledge. Retrieved 12 September 2013. – via Questia (subscription required)
  12. Franklin L. Ford (1985). Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism. Harvard University Press. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-674-68636-6. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  13. "No Safe Haven: Iran's Global Assassination Campaign". Iran Human Rights. 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  14. Times, Frank J. Prial; Special to The New York (8 December 1979). "Nephew of the Shah Is Slain in Paris" – via NYTimes.com.
  15. "Bakhtiar escapes assassination attempt". Daily News. 17 July 1980. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  16. Lesh, Carolyn (8 December 1979). "Shah's kin slain". The Bryan Times. Paris. UPI. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  17. John Thompson; Sara Akrami (1 February 2012). "The Mullahs' History of Assassination". Front Page Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 August 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  18. Rizvi, Sajid (8 December 1979). "Iranian situation is very unclear". The Bryan Times. Tehran. UPI. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  19. Chambers, Andrea (5 May 1980). "In Bitter American Exile, the Shah's Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty". People. 13 (18). Retrieved 8 August 2013.
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