An efficient enantioselective synthesis of both the enantiomers of cis-4-hydroxy-proline and bulgecinine was accomplished starting from synthons 1 or 1'. The improved synthetic route to the aforesaid enantiomerically pure proline derivatives was established via a stereocontrolled double iodocyclization of 3(a,b) or 3'(a,b) Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd