Mehdi Hashemi, the son of the cleric who heads Iran’s Expediency Council, reportedly arrived in Tehran from abroad on Sunday night, only to be handed a court summons upon his arrival.
ILNA reports that Hashemi’s lawyer, Alizadeh Tabatabayi, has announced that his client will report to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow. He added that the summons does not indicate any charges and only demands that Hashemi report to the prosecutor’s office to give a number of explanations.
The ILNA report includes the lawyer’s observation that his client’s passport has not been confiscated.
The spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, had said earlier that Mehdi Hashemi has to face charges in connection with events that followed the 2009 presidential election.
He stressed that Hashemi will be treated like any other person who is accused by the judiciary.
Ayatollah Rafsanjani, a highly influential political figure in the Islamic Republic, cautiously sided with those who challenged the 2009 presidential election result and alleged that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was fraudulent.
While election challengers were harshly persecuted by the establishment with arrests and imprisonment, Ayatollah Rafsanjani and his family were targeted for their apparent support for protesters.
Mehdi Hashemi has been in Britain during the crackdown on election protesters, and conservative factions of the government have called for his prosecution, claiming he was active in fomenting the post-election protests, which the government refers to as “sedition.”
The Hashemis have dismissed the accusations, and the family’s eldest son, Mohsen Hashemi, has told the Fars News Agency that they are in no way concerned about Mehdi Hashemi’s fate, remaining convinced that justice will be done.
On Saturday night, Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, was taken to Evin Prison to serve out a six-month jail term for the charge of “propaganda against the regime”, a reference to her criticism of the judiciary for its treatment of election protesters.
