Rafsanjani’s son criticizes handling of his father's death

Yasser Hashemi, the son of Iran’s former president and influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, publicly criticized ex-President Hassan Rouhani's handling of his father's death.

In a note, he accused Rouhani's administration of rushing to close the case surrounding Rafsanjani's death.

Hashemi's criticism came after the resignation of former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif from Masoud Pezeshkian’s Strategic Council for Transition.

On August 11, Zarif posted on Instagram, expressing his dissatisfaction with the lack of progress in the ministerial selection committees and his inability to make a difference in this regard. He wrote, "I am ashamed... These shortcomings have set the course for me to continue at the university."

Addressing his note to Zarif, Hashemi did not shy away from drawing parallels between the treatment of his father by Rouhani’s inner circle and the actions of Masoud Pezeshkian’s allies.

According to him, Rafsanjani, who played a crucial role in supporting Rouhani during the 2013 presidential election, was met with disrespect by Rouhani’s close associates after the election.

Hashemi singled out Hossein Fereydoun, Rouhani's brother, as well as Mahmoud Vaezi the chief of staff of Rouhani and Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the Head of Plan and Budget Organization, for their behavior towards his father, noting that even Rouhani himself had shown "unkindness" and "ingratitude" towards Rafsanjani.

On January 8, 2017, it was announced that Rafsanjani had suddenly died after swimming at the Koushk pool, a facility belonging to the Expediency Discernment Council he chaired. Officially, his death was attributed to a "heart attack," but suspicions quickly arose, fueled by Rafsanjani’s complex political legacy.

Yasser Hashemi suggested that the intelligence ministry under Rouhani, along with other security agencies, was more concerned with swiftly closing the case than with providing a thorough and transparent investigation.

“The intelligence ministry of the eleventh government, instead of convincing Iranians and the world, alongside other intelligence and security agencies in the country, hurried to close that perpetually open case,” he added.

Rafsanjani's family has consistently voiced concerns that he may have been murdered, citing several suspicious factors. These include delays in transporting him to the hospital, the lack of access to CCTV footage from both the swimming pool and his office, the absence of a post-mortem examination despite their requests, a hurried burial, and the disappearance of highly confidential documents, such as his diaries and last will and testament, from his office safe shortly after his death.

In 2019, Rafsanjani’s daughter, Fatemeh Hashemi, revealed in an interview with Etemad newspaper that two months before her father's death, two individuals had approached her at the university, warning that her father “would be killed in a way that would make it appear as a natural death.”

Despite the warnings, the official investigation, led by Ali Shamkhani, then Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, concluded that Rafsanjani's death was "completely natural, without any ambiguity."

Rafsanjani's other son, Mohsen Hashemi, stated in an interview published by the reformist Etemad Online website on January 15, 2022, that the Islamic Republic had adopted a policy of attributing his father's death to natural causes. He further criticized the investigation conducted by the Supreme Council of National Security, describing it as "superficial."

Rafsanjani's death is not an isolated case. The Islamic Republic has a history of suspicious deaths among its officials. One such case is that of Mohammad Rouhani, the son of President Hassan Rouhani, who was murdered in his home located on a military base in southern Tehran in 1996. At the time, Mohammad Rouhani was a flight student, and his death has been shrouded in secrecy. Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and deputy to Rouhani when he headed the Supreme National Security Council, told the Time magazine that Mohammad Rouhani was killed for political reasons. Yet, the details of his murder have never been fully disclosed.

Mousavian revealed that Hassan Rouhani pursued the matter for years but eventually decided to remain silent and not pursue the issue further.