Amir Hossein Rabii Amir Hossein Rabii ( died 9 April 1979 ) was an Iranian senior military officer who served as the commander in chief of Imperial Iranian Air Force from 1976 to 1979 . He was the last commander of the force . Education . Rabii was among the first military officers of the Imperial Iranian Air Force who were trained in the US and at the Furstenfeldbrook air base , Germany , in the 1950s . He and other military officers including Nader Jahanbani also took jet pilot instructor course at the air base . Career and activities . Rabii was a military pilot and military expert . After returning to Iran he contributed to the foundation of the acrobat team in the air force , named the Imperial Iranian Air Force Golden Crown Acro Jet Team , in 1958 . He was the commander of the Shiraz air base until 1976 . He served as commander in chief of Imperial Iranian Air Force ( IIAF ) from Spring 1976 to 1979 with the rank of lieutenant general . He succeeded Fazayel Tadayoun in the post . When he was in command , there were forty - eight thousand men in the air force . Barry Rubin , a veteran Middle East expert , described him as possibly " the most able officer in the top circles of the armed forces . " In August 1978 , Rabii indirectly urged Moshe Dayan , then foreign minister of Israel , to meet the Shah , Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , and to tell him the increasing tension in Iran . Rabii complained that the Shah had been ignoring his and others ' remarks . The visit was paid by Dayan in the following days . Rabii was one of the military officials who met General Robert Huyser , then deputy commander of US forces in Europe , during the latter ' s visit to Iran from 4 January to 3 February 1979 . Three days before leaving the country on 13 January , the Shah told all commanders , including Rabii , that they should support the government of Shahpour Bakhtiar . Following the 1979 revolution clashes occurred between supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini and people loyal to the Shah regime . Rabi ' i instructed his men not to kill anyone on the other side . When then prime minister Bakhtiar ordered him to bomb the arms factory in central Tehran , he refused to carry out this order . Rabii did not support for the revolution , but a significant portion of the air force cadets and young skilled military technical personnel did . Sa ' id Mehdiyun replaced Rabii as commander of the air force . Personal life . Rabii married a German woman , Gerda , and had two sons , Arean and Arman . Death . Rabii was arrested in February 1979 along with Tehran martial law governor Mehdi Rahimi , air force general Ayat Mahaghghi and Isfahan martial law governor Reza Naji , and they were all taken to Alawi school in Tehran . Special press conferences were organized by the Islamic regime to publicly display these officials , including former prime minister Amir Hoveyda , former SAVAK chief Nematollah Nasiri and Rabii , and these conferences were broadcast nationally . During the initial interrogations , Rabii stated that the air force purchased advanced warplanes and other military equipment from the US , which were all in the country , and that the air force of Iran was intact and the second powerful force in the world . Rabii was secretly tried and in the court , he stated " General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country like a dead mouse . " He was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and treason among the others . Local dailies reported that the verdict was based on the confessions of other Shah - period officials . He and nine other civil and military officials were executed by the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Qasr prison of Tehran on 9 April 1979 .