Fatemeh Hashemi: The Supreme National Security Council Closed My Father's Death Case

Fatemeh Hashemi, daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, emphasized that her father's death was not 'natural' and announced that the case has been closed by Iran's Supreme National Security Council. She also mentioned that two months before her father's death, two individuals from the 'front and war' forces warned her that there were plans to assassinate her father. In an interview with the Jamaran website published on Tuesday, January 1, she said: 'I think they closed that case in the Supreme National Security Council, and last year, the last time that council invited us, they announced that they would close this case.' Ms. Hashemi also stated that she has no information on whether the case of her father's death is being pursued by the presidency or any other institution. Fatemeh Hashemi reiterated that her father's urine and towel were contaminated with radioactive materials above the permissible limit of 10 percent. She added: 'In November of that year, two men who claimed to be from the front and war came to my office at the university and said that they intended to assassinate your father and to convey this message to him.' Fatemeh Hashemi mentioned that she raised this issue in the Supreme National Security Council but did not specify whether she did so before or after her father's death. She also did not provide further details about these individuals. The 'front and war' forces usually refer to the Revolutionary Guards or Basij forces that were present at the front during the Iran-Iraq War. Fa'ezeh Hashemi, another daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had also reported in December 2017 that in a meeting with several members of the Supreme National Security Council, the Hashemi family was informed that there was 'ten times the permissible limit of radioactivity' in their father's body. Iranian Supreme National Security Council officials have yet to respond to the statements made by the Hashemi family. Meanwhile, Yasser Hashemi, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's son, reported on January 7, 2018, that the President of Iran 'did not accept the entire content' of the Supreme National Security Council's report regarding his father's death and ordered that this matter be reviewed again by the council. In similar cases, experts have not considered the presence of radioactive materials in the bodies of some individuals as conclusive evidence for their deaths due to this reason. For instance, regarding the death of Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority, Swiss doctors stated that their tests indicated the presence of polonium in Arafat's body, but they had no conclusive evidence to show that Arafat died due to this poisoning. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding figure of the Islamic Republic and a senior official in Iran over the past four decades, passed away on January 8, 2017, at Tajrish Hospital in Tehran. His sudden death sparked many rumors about the possibility of an assassination attempt against him. However, Mohammad Hashemi, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's brother, stated on February 9, 2017, that his brother was neither 'assassinated' nor suffered from 'suffocation,' but rather the cause of his death was 'cardiac arrest.' Mohammad Hashemi later said, 'The cause of death was announced as cardiac arrest in the hospital, but no one stated the reason for the cardiac arrest. No one has yet announced what caused the cardiac arrest.' Meanwhile, Fatemeh Hashemi questioned the ambiguities surrounding her father's death, asking, 'Why was he taken to the hospital with a 21-minute delay?' The daughter of Hashemi Rafsanjani also deemed the statements of her father's security team suspicious, saying: 'Both before and after the Ayatollah's death, we reached conclusions from the contradictions in the responses of his guards. The fact that it was announced on the first night that no one but the team leader should provide explanations, and that whenever we asked any of the guards a question, they would say go ask the team leader, indicates that something unusual happened.' Fatemeh Hashemi also raised the question of why no samples were taken from her father's body and why he had 'no death certificate' at the time of burial. She added: 'Perhaps if they wanted to conduct an autopsy, I would not have accepted. But taking samples was not a difficult task since it is the size of a needle. For example, they could have taken a strand of hair or a small piece of skin or liver.' Following a protest at the Qom seminary and the controversial placard 'O you who negotiate, the Farah pool awaits you,' the issue of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's death was brought up again. Meanwhile, Fatemeh Hashemi referred to this placard, stating: 'My analysis is that these individuals boldly wanted to say we are doing this and are not afraid of anyone, and we are bringing it up ourselves.' Fatemeh Hashemi had previously stated that following her father's death, individuals went to her office at the Expediency Council and emptied a safe where she kept 'important documents.' She did not provide further details about the identity of these individuals.