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Khomeini's Grandson 'leaves Iran to avoid presidential inauguration'
The grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of Iran's Islamic revolution, is reported to have left the country to avoid attending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential inauguration. Hassan Khomeini, a supporter of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has travelled to an unnamed "neighbouring country" to escape official pressure to be present at next month's swearing-in ceremony, according to the pro-reformist news website, Salaamnews.

His absence would be a blow to the authorities' hopes of using the hallowed Khomeini family name to confer legitimacy on the event in the face of allegations that Ahmadinejad owes his re-election to fraud.

Hassan — a member of the pro-reformist Association of Combatant Clerics — is the most well-known and politically active of Khomeini's surviving descendants. He has previously been attacked by hardliners for his moderate views and for an allegedly opulent lifestyle.

Last year, a pro-Ahmadinejad website accused him of indulging in steam baths and driving a BMW after he publicly urged military groups to stay out of politics.

His father, Ahmad Khomeini, was one of the late ayatollah's closest aides but died in mysterious circumstances in 1995. Rumours circulated that he was poisoned after falling foul of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the then president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, although the official cause of death was a heart attack.
Wasn't the thorium-flavored shrimp?
Other members of the Khomeini clan have also fallen from official favour in recent years. Another grandson, Ali Eshraghi, also a reformist, was barred from the candidates' list for last year's parliamentary elections by the guardian council, although he was later re-instated. Hossein Khomeini, Hassan's cousin, is a political outcast after repeatedly expressing pro-American views and calling for the regime's overthrow.
Posted by: Steve White 2009-07-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=274925