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

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

In a note, he accused Rouhani's government of hastily closing the case surrounding Rafsanjani's death.

Hashemi's criticism came after former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif resigned from Masoud Pezeshkian's Transitional Strategic Council.

On 11 August Zarif posted on Instagramin which he expressed 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 deficiencies laid the foundation for my further studies at the university.”

In his letter 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 Masud Pezeshkian's allies.

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

Hashemi particularly reprimanded Hossein Fereydoun, Rouhani's brother, as well as Mahmoud Vaezi, Rouhani's chief of staff, and Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of the Planning and Budget Organization, for their behavior toward his father, noting that even Rouhani himself had shown “unkindness” and “ingratitude” toward Rafsanjani.

On January 8, 2017, it was announced that Rafsanjani had died suddenly after swimming in the Koushk Pool, a facility owned by the Expediency Council he headed. Officially, his death was attributed to a “heart attack,” but suspicions quickly arose, fueled by Rafsanjani's complex political legacy.

Yasser Hashemi said the Intelligence Ministry under Rohani and other security agencies were more concerned with closing the case quickly than conducting a thorough and transparent investigation.

“Instead of convincing Iranians and the world, the 11th administration's Ministry of Intelligence, along with other intelligence and security agencies in the country, rushed to close this still open case,” he added.

Rafsanjani’s family has repeatedly expressed concerns that he may have been murdered, citing several suspicious factors, including delays in transporting him to hospital, lack of access to CCTV footage from the swimming pool and his office, failure to conduct an autopsy despite requests, a rushed funeral, and the disappearance of highly confidential documents such as his diaries and will from his office safe shortly after his death.

In 2019, Rafsanjani's daughter Fatemeh Hashemi revealed in an interview with the Etemad newspaper that two months before her father's death, two people approached her at the university and warned her that her father would be killed “in a way that would make it look like 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 and there is no ambiguity whatsoever.”

Rafsanjani’s other son, Mohsen Hashemistated in an interview published on the reformist website Etemad Online on January 15, 2022, that the Islamic Republic had pursued a policy of attributing his father's death to natural causes. He also criticized the Supreme Council for National Security's investigation, calling it “superficial.”

Rafsanjani's death is not an isolated incident. The Islamic Republic has a long history of suspicious deaths among its officials. One such case is that of Mohammad Rouhani, the son of President Hassan Rouhani, who was assassinated in his home at a military base in southern Tehran in 1996. Mohammad Rouhani was a student pilot at the time and his death was kept secret. Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and Rouhani's deputy when he headed the Supreme National Security Council, told Time magazine that Mohammad Rouhani was killed for political reasons. However, the details of his assassination were never fully disclosed.

Mousavian revealed that Hassan Rouhani had been pursuing the matter for years but finally decided to remain silent and not pursue the matter further.