Parviz Sabeti crafted an anonymous new life for his family – but now he faces a $225m lawsuit for atrocities committed in prisons in Tehran and elsewhere

Neighbors in the upscale Florida community of Windermere know them as Peter and Nancy, the seemingly friendly retired couple they wave to on morning walks, and who always appear to enjoy visits from their two high-flying grown daughters, one a respected professor of science at Harvard University.

Yet behind the high walls of their $3.6m lakefront mansion lies a darker, more closely guarded reality: “Peter” is actually Parviz Sabeti, the alleged head of secret police and chief torturer of the former Shah of Iran’s pre-revolutionary government, now facing a $225m lawsuit in Florida for atrocities committed in prisons in Tehran and elsewhere.

A district court judge ruled last month that the 89-year-old Sabeti – after crafting a successful and anonymous new life for himself and his family since fleeing his homeland in 1978 – must face trial in the case brought by three plaintiffs who describe themselves as former political prisoners.



Former mutilated prisoners tortured by Savak, the political police during the reign of the shah, on 28 February 1980 in Iran. Photograph: Michel Artault/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

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