During studying, Tabatabaei met with
Mehdi Bazargan and joined his party,
Freedom Movement. He became a supporter of
Ruhollah Khomeini and published many articles about him and his movement in German newspapers. Tabatabaei was with Khomeini during his exile in
Paris, in the suburb of
Neauphle-le-Chateau, serving in numerous coordination meetings. By his own admission Tabatabaei had "been one of eight people in Europe and America, who had prepared revolution abroad and kept in contact with Khomeini." He accompanied Khomeini on his return to Iran on the
Air France plane on 1 February 1979, along with
Sadegh Khalkhali and
Peter Scholl-Latour, a
Franco-
German journalist. After the victory of the
Iranian Revolution, he became Head of Department of Political and Social at
Ministry of Interior and assumed the task of holding the 1979 referendum which resulted in the establishment of the
Islamic Republic. After that, he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister by
Mehdi Bazargan just hours before his resignation. He was also spokesman of the caretaker government and held the post until
Mohammad-Ali Rajai became new prime minister. He was also a candidate in the
1980 presidential election, placing fifth among one hundred and twenty-seven candidates. From 1979 to 1982, Tabatabaei worked in various government offices, first as deputy interior minister and government spokesman. From November 1979 to September 1980 he served as Secretary of State in the
Prime Minister's office. On 21 March 1980, Tabatabaei met
Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in
Bonn, to discuss a possible ending of the
hostage crisis in Tehran. The conversation remained without concrete results. Tabatabaei remained in touch with the German government and informed German authorities of the state of discussions in government and in parliament. This took place on 26 October 1980 in a telephone conversation between Tabatabaei and Foreign Minister Genscher, in which Tabatabaei informed about the debate in
Parliament. On 16 and 18 September 1980 Tabatabaei met Foreign Minister Genscher and
US Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Bonn to discuss the next steps in the hostage issue. Subsequently, he was responsible for the procurement of arms and travelled abroad as a special envoy of the Iranian Government. In this regard, he was involved in arms trade scandals and drug smuggling in Germany in 1982 and 1983. In 1982, Tabatabaei retracted to his own statements from the policy, but on 8 January 1983, he was held with 1.65 kg of raw opium in his suitcase at Düsseldorf airport by customs officials, and released on bail. His status as a special envoy was confirmed in 1983 by the Iranian government. He was also a possible candidate for
2009 election which he withdrew in favor of
Mohsen Rezaee and later became one of his advisers and campaign members. He was also his deputy manager of
campaign in
2013 election and possible vice president candidate. ==Death==