Later that same year, he was arrested again on June 15, this time with his eldest son Vahid Sazegara, on the order of Tehran’s Public Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. Vahid Sazegara was released July 9, but Mohsen Sazegara went on to spend 114 days in custody and 79 days on a hunger strike, during which he lost almost 50 pounds of his body weight.
In the 1980s, Sazegara served as political deputy in the prime minister’s office, deputy minister of heavy industries, chairman of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran, and vice minister of planning and budget. Sazegara became disillusioned with the Islamic Republic government. Following the end of the Iran–Iraq War in 1988 and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, he turned down further government posts, saying that his refusal was in order to continue his study of history.
