Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali (Persian: محمدصادق گیوی خلخالی; 27 July 1926 – 26 November 2003)[3] was an Iranian Shia cleric who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution" that earned him a reputation as Iran's "hanging judge".

On 24 February 1979, Khalkhali was chosen by Ruhollah Khomeini to be the Sharia ruler (Persian: حاکم شرع) or head the newly established Revolutionary Courts, and to make Islamic rulings.

[12] Khalkhali ordered the executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida,[13] the Shah's longtime prime minister, and Nematollah Nassiri, a former head of SAVAK.

"[4]Another version of the story has Khalkhali saying that while presiding over Hoveida's execution he made sure communication links between Qasr Prison and the outside world were severed, "to prevent any last-minute intercession on his behalf by Mehdi Bazargan, the provisional prime minister.

"[15] According to an interview by Elaine Sciolino of Shiraz-based Ayatollah Majdeddin Mahallati, Khalkhali came to Persepolis with "a band of thugs" and gave an angry speech demanding that "the faithful torch the silk-lined tent city and the grandstand that the Shah had built," but was driven off by stone-throwing local residents.

[4] Khalkhali, in his positions in the Islamic Revolutionary government, made it his mission to eliminate the community of Bahá'ís in Iran (the largest non-Muslim religious minority).

All Bahá'í properties were seized, including its holiest site, the House of the Báb in Shiraz, which was turned over by the government to Khalkhali for the activities of the Fada'iyan-i-Islam.

[20] One of the complaints of the revolution's leader and Khalkhali's superior, the Ayatollah Khomeini against the regime they had overthrown was that the Shah's far more limited number of executions of drug traffickers had been "inhuman.

"[21] In December 1980 his influence waned when he was forced to resign from the revolutionary courts because of his failure to account for $14 million seized through drug raids, confiscations, and fines, although some believe this as much the doing of President Bani-Sadr and the powerful head of the Islamic Republic Party Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti "working behind the scenes" to remove a source of bad publicity for the revolution, as a matter of outright corruption.