Tweet Reignites Rumors that Ahmad Khomeini was Murdered

A controversial historian and filmmaker has revived long-running speculation about the death of Ahmad Khomeini, the youngest son of the founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1995. In a tweet on February 5, Hossein Dehbashi appeared to challenge the theory that Ruhollah Khomeini's son died due to "excessive drug use,” indirectly suggesting that he could instead have been murdered.

Dehbashi’s tweet listed the various people who had either been murdered or died under suspicious circumstances who had accompanied Khomeini in 1979 as he flew back from exile to Tehran.  It was a reminder to his followers of the high tension, violence and paranoia that characterized the years following the Islamic Revolution.

He wrote: "Attendees: Abolhassan Bani Sadr, president, death in France; Sadegh Tabatabai, deputy prime minister, death in Germany; Hassan Lahouti, Commander of the Revolutionary Committee, death in Evin Prison; Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Foreign Minister, executed; Morteza Motahhari, Member of the Revolutionary Council, assassinated; Ahmad Khomeini, head of his father's office, death by excessive consumption."

The post caused astonishment across the political spectrum. Javad Imam, an ex-IRGC commander who has worked with the Foundation for the Preservation and Publication of Ayatollah Khomeini's Works since the 1980s, railed against Dehbashi on Twitter, calling his speculation “cowardly”. Dehbashi responding by saying that he had only echoed comments made by others before him, adding: “Would you like to be reminded about your responsibility in hiring thugs and slaughtering dissidents?"

The Office for the Publication of Knowledge for the Revolution [Nashr-e Maaref] also publicly dismissed Dehbashi’s remarks. But this body has also published the official memoirs of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who once suggested the same. Writing in his diaries on March 19, 1995, Rafsanjani is the publisher of the official memoirs of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

"I came home at night," he wrote in reference to March 19, 1995. "Mohsen and Hamid (Lahouti, Faezeh Hashemi's husband) were here. They talked about the death of Haj Ahmad Agha. There are a lot of false rumors about his untimely death, and counter-revolutionaries seem to be behind them; Israeli radio is also being mischievous.”

Ahmad Khomeini was considered an ally of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, but the diaries suggest their relationship suffered toward the end of Khomeini’s life. Hashemi Rafsanjani suggested as much in an interview with the weekly Omid after Khomeini’s death, during which he criticized the environment that allowed rumors that the Leader’s son had been murdered to flourish. Part of the reason they had taken root was because Ayatollah Khomeini had rejected Ayatollah Montazeri as his successor, leading to speculation that Ahmad was instead being positioned for the top role.  

Hossein Dehbashi: A Controversial Figure

Dehbashi previously worked with several government agencies in Iran. He was arrested in the United States in 2010, allegedly for forging a United Nations letter in support of his immigration application. More recently, he made a propaganda video in praise of Hassan Rouhani, then became a staunch critic of his later on.

Dehbashi’s social media posts have courted controversy in the past.  In 2018, he tweeted: "Today, on the anniversary of the Forouhars' murders [opposition members Dariush Forouhar and Parvaneh Eskandari, who were killed by regime agents in 1998], I recall the day when their killer proudly said he had finished them so quickly that when Parvaneh died, her muscles and organs were still moving. Of course I cannot say who and where.”

The chain murders in Iran in the late 1980s and 1990s have previously been linked with the death of Ahmad Khomeini in 1995. The Iranian journalist and human rights activist Emadedin Baghi, who has extensively researched and written on the killings, has claimed that Mohammad Niazi, the head of the Judiciary of the Armed Forces, personally told Ahmad’s son, Hassan Khomeini that his father had also been killed by the Ministry of Intelligence.

Baghi also noted that Akbar Khosh Kushk, a senior Ministry of Intelligence official, had been a neighbor of Ahmad Khomeini. He said Hassan Khomeini was later told by Niazi, who was handling the case, Khosh Kushk and Saeed Emami, the then- deputy minister of intelligence, had confessed to the killing of Ahmad Khomeini.

Hassan Khomeini wrote of the claims: "Mr. Niazi's presence in my office, and the announcement that there are confessions about the murder of the late Imam's son, is correct. But the matters brought up in that meeting, as well as the detail of the contents of those talks, are another story."