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Daily Telegraph Khomeini grandson attacks 'religious dictators' By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor August 5, 2003 A grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the late leader of Iran's Islamic revolution, has denounced the country's religious regime as "the worst dictatorship in the world", reminiscent of the "church during the Dark Ages in Europe". In extraordinary remarks that will outrage hardliners among Teheran's ruling mullahs, Hossein Khomeini almost seemed to invite America to overthrow the clerical regime, as it did to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The fact that Mr Khomeini's comments were made during a visit to Iraq will stoke hardliners' fears that, under US sponsorship, Iraq's Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala will become rival centres of religious authority and political activity. Ayatollah Khomeini lived in Najaf, from where he sought to undermine the Shah of Iran. Mr Khomeini was quoted by the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper as urging "separating religion from the state and ending the despotic religious regime reminiscent of the rule of the church during the Dark Ages in Europe". He added: "All those who came to power after [the death in 1989 of] my grandfather exploited his name and that of Islam to continue their unfair rule." Mr Khomeini is known as a maverick, but as a descendant of the revered imam of the revolution, his comments will not be easily dismissed. After the fall of the Shah in 1979, he sided with Abdul-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the moderate first president of the revolutionary government, against hardliners who eventually ousted him. More recently, he has praised the student-led protests calling for political reform. In comments reported by the Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey, Mr Khomeini praised the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. "I see day by day that [Iraq] is on the path to improvement. I see that there's security, that the people are happy, that they've been released from suffering," he said.
