Parviz Nick-khah, and the confessions of the accused, since the commission of the crimes is certain, the prosecutor of the Islamic Revolutionary Court asks the court to issue the judgment of the death penalty and the confiscation of all your [Hoveyda's] property. The composition of the trial's proceedings reflected the style in which the indictment was designed and promulgated. Many of the charges were never substantiated and often reflected uninvestigated rumours of the day. Abbas Milani agrees with this notion when he described the essence of the court's ambience: On 7 April 1979, Hoveyda was transported to Qasr Prison, once a getaway palace for monarchs of the Qajar dynasty, but converted into a prison during the 1920s. By this time, he was now aware that there would be no mercy for him, and the whole charade would end in his own death. Quickly shuffled back in front of Khalkhali's tribunal, he once again heard the court's indictment at three in the afternoon. There is some speculation as to who ordered the resumption of the trial. Bani Sadr, one among many leaders of the Provisional Revolutionary Government who advocated a public trial, states that only Khomeini himself had the authority to make such an order. Behind locked doors, Hoveyda's fate, which had already been decided by Khomeini days earlier, was sealed. Khalkhali repeatedly yelled at and insulted Hoveyda during much of the trial, calling him "a corrupter of the earth" and a "Western criminal puppet", refusing to allow him to make a testimony in his defense. In defiance, Hoveyda denounced Khalkhali and informed him that he had no intention of defending himself any longer in front of a sham court. Immediately, Khalkhali announced his sentence, death by firing squad and confiscation of all material possessions. Minutes later, the former Prime Minister was taken into the prison's yard. Before reaching the area designated for firing squad executions, Hojatoleslam Hadi Ghaffari (currently a political reformist) pulled out a pistol and shot Hoveyda twice in the neck. He was left on the ground in agony, begging for the executioners to "finish him off". Seconds before the coup de grace was at last given, Hoveyda is said to have gasped to the guard standing over him: "It wasn't supposed to end like this". According to the autopsy report, he apparently also was beaten shortly before his execution. Hoveyda's corpse was held in Tehran's morgue for