Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's Memoirs - October 26, 1999 A significant moment occurred when Ayatollah Khamenei denied a claim in response to a question I posed.

On this day, I received important reports from two deputies of the Ministry of Intelligence regarding a group known as "Mahdaviyat," led by Seyyed Mohammad Milani. They revealed that this group had attempted to assassinate Ali Razini, the former head of the judiciary in Tehran. Milani claimed that in 1980, he had heard prophecies from a Sheikh about the future leadership of the revolution. The Sheikh allegedly told Ayatollah Khamenei that he would become the leader after Ayatollah Khomeini, told Seyyed Mohammad Esraghi (Khomeini's son-in-law) that he would die before Khomeini, and told Milani that he himself would one day lead the world. He also confessed to planning other assassination attempts, including targeting me (Hashemi) because of a statement I made during a Friday prayer sermon.

In a private meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, I raised these claims. He firmly denied all of them. We also discussed the trial of Abdullah Nouri, issues with the press, and Gholamhossein Karbaschi's legal case. The leader expressed support for the approach the parliament had taken toward regulating the press, but he was distressed by the massacre of people in Chechnya by Russia, although he mentioned there was no viable method to prevent these actions at the moment.

Later, I was informed that a group from the Mujahedin (MKO) had attempted to hijack an Iranian airplane en route to Orumiyeh, aiming to fly it to France, but their attempt had failed.

In the afternoon, Nick Browne, the British Ambassador to Tehran, visited me to discuss developing relations between Iran and the UK. He requested my help in removing the bounty on Salman Rushdie, but I informed him that this matter concerned the Fifteen Khordad Foundation, which is not a government entity.

My son, Mohsen Hashemi, also reported the lack of coordination within the Executives of Construction Party (Kargozaran). He mentioned that certain members, particularly Fa'ezeh and Ali Hashemi, were not taking strong enough positions against the leftist factions and were not aligned in party meetings.

Meanwhile, opposition to President Mohammad Khatami’s visit to France had intensified, with protests in UNESCO and speeches in the French parliament against the visit.