Relative of Heir to Khomeini Admits Murder

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  A relative of the designated successor to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini confessed to murder, hoarding weapons and collaborating with the shah’s secret police, Tehran radio said today.

The relative, Mehdi Hashemi, said the base for his activities was the office of the unwitting Hussein Ali Montazeri, an ayatollah and the 86-year-old Khomeini’s hand-picked successor.

Hashemi’s arrest is believed to be part of a power struggle between allies of Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani and Montazeri.

The radio, monitored in Nicosia, said Hashemi made the statements in an interview aired on Iranian television Tuesday. It quoted him as saying he was guilty of “gross deviations,” including “standing up against the imam of the Islamic nation,” a reference to Khomeini.

Arrested in October

Hashemi, the former head of Iran’s Global Islamic Movement, responsible for exporting the Islamic revolution, was arrested in late October and charged with murder, kidnaping, illegal possession of firearms and explosives, forgery and engaging in unspecified “underground operations.”

The Information Ministry said all charges against Hashemi and his collaborators had been proven except one. It did not elaborate. Most of the charges carry the death sentence on conviction.

Hashemi admitted he murdered Hojatoleslam Shamsabadi, a clergyman in Isfahan, in 1975.