Iran's first president says Khomeini betrayed 1979 Islamic revolution
VERSAILLES, France - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini betrayed the principles of the Iranian revolution after sweeping to power in 1979, his first president told Reuters, leaving a "very bitter" taste among some of those who had returned with him to Tehran in triumph.
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, a sworn opponent of Tehran's clerical rulers ever since being driven from office and fleeing abroad in 1981, recalled how 40 years ago in Paris, he had been convinced that the religious leader's Islamic revolution would pave the way for democracy and human rights after the rule of the Shah.
"When we were in France everything we said to him he embraced and then announced it like Koranic verses without any hesitation," Bani-Sadr, now 85, said in an interview at his home in Versailles, outside Paris, where he has lived since 1981.
"We were sure that a religious leader was committing himself and that all these principles would happen for the first time in our history," he said.
