November 11, 1953 — United Press (UP)
The Mossadegh Project | January 5, 2013 |
Mossadegh Has Heart Attack;
Supporters Urge Strike
Ousted Premier Tells Judges To Go Home;
Tells Them They Are Incompetent
TEHRAN, Nov. 11 (UP) — Pamphlets were circulated in Tehran today demanding a general strike to protest the treason trial of Mohammed Mossadegh as the ousted Premier suffered a heart seizure in the court building.
Mossadegh advised the military judges trying him to “get up and go home” because they had no legal authority to try him, then Mossadegh clutched his chest, cried for heart stimulants and wept until water dropped from his nose.
Tehran radio denounced distributors of the pamphlets as “treacherous troublemakers.” It said the city’s bazaars definitely would open for business tomorrow, the day the pamphlets urged the general strike.
As today’s 4½ hour court session ended in the Hall of Mirrors at Sultanatabad Barracks, [Saltanatabad Palace] Mossadegh wept so hard that tears flowed off his large, beak-like nose. The tears came after prosecutor Hossein Azemoudeh described him heatedly as an “old hag” who “shammed illness.”
The 73-year-old Mossadegh continued to press his charges that the court was incompetent to try him. He said he was presenting a truthful defense of himself “unless of course you have other means such as giving prisoners drugs to say only what you want them to say.”
At another, he turned pale, clutched his chest and cried, “Give me some coramine (heart stimulant) drops.” He drank the drops in a glass of water and then, apparently revived, declared in a shower of tears that, “all I’ve struggled for is for my country and my nation.”
The balding former premier, who has kept the court in an uproar with his tears, laughter, name calling and threatened walkouts since the trial began Sunday, cried:
“I have committed no crime except to protect my country against foreign exploitation and intrigues so my nation could be truly independent.”
“This evidently is my major crime,” he said, and swung into an attack on “British imperialism.”
Alternate headlines:
Mossadegh Trial Brings Protests; Call For Strike
Mossadegh’s Backers Plot General Strike
General Strike Urged By Mossy Adherents
Mossadegh Has Heart Seizure
Mossadegh Struck By Heart Attack
MOSSY HAS HEART ATTACK
Tears Flowing At Tehran Trial
Related links:
Iran Indicts Mossadegh As Traitor | AP, October 4, 1953
Light Punishment | The Brooklyn Eagle, December 24, 1953
Court Martial Rules Itself Legal To Try Mossadegh | AP, November 15, 1953
MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”