Ahmad’s children seem to share his distaste for Khamenei. Hassan, who is the most prominent of Khomeini's grandchildren and is in charge of his grandfather’s mausoleum, met personally with Mousavi and supported his call to cancel the election results. Hassan also skipped Khamenei’s formal endorsement of Ahmadinejad--widely interpreted as a slight against the Supreme Leader. In February 2008, in an interview with weekly magazine
Shahrvand-e-Emrooz
(which was later shot down by the government), Hassan spoke out against military interference in politics. Soon after, a publication tied to Ahmadinejad attacked him in an article, “The Secret of Hassan Khomeini’s Red Cheeks,” accusing him of corruption. According to daily newspaper
Kargozaran
, this was the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that a member of Khomeini’s
Beit
was publicly insulted. A few days later, the elderly Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Tavassoli, former head of Khomeini’s office and Khomeini’s personal secretary, reportedly died of a heart attack while complaining angrily about this insult.
Yasser and Ali, Hassan’s two younger brothers, are explicit supporters of the reformist movement in Iran. Yasser frequently attends gatherings of reformist parties such as Mosharekat, Kargozaran
,
and Sazman-e-Mojahedin. (High-ranking members of these parties are now in prison, accused of initiating a “velvet revolution” in Iran.) Yasser also attended Rafsanjani’s controversial Friday sermon on July 17, a gathering considered a direct challenge to Khamenei.
Ali, Hassan’s youngest brother, who is married to the granddaughter of powerful Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani, gave speeches around the country asking people to vote for Mousavi. A part of one speech was censored by Iranian government-run television despite including a quote from his revered grandfather. “The further we get from [my grandfather’s] ideas, the less legitimate the regime becomes,” Ali said on the 20th anniversary of Khomeini’s death, seven days before the June 12 presidential election.