While the Iranian government announced on January 8, that Rafsanjani died at the age of 83 after a heart attack, Fatima claims that “evidence submitted by the doctors about her father’s death is not convincing and opposed to what she knows.” 

Before his death and he was examined by an experienced Iranian doctor who lives in the United States, and according to Fatima, her father was in good health.

The Iranian opposition Green Movement supporters claim that there are several signs proving that Rafsanjani did not die of a heart attack, but was instead biologically assassinated, due to his recent escalating problems with Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. 

Rohollah Zam told Voice of America radio, that “Rafsanjani was choked underwater in the pool when he went to the gym.” Zam is a close associate of the Green Movement’s leaders.

the son of late Shiite cleric Abul Qasim Khozali, Mehdi Khozali, said that doctors under pressure when they issued a death certificate for Rafsanjani. He added that the certificate should have been issued by forensics. He stated that Rafsanjani’s family members are under security surveillance, and they are not allowed to be interviewed about their father’s death.

A statement by Hassan Qazi Zada Hashemi, the Iranian Health Minister, raised a controversy when he said that “Rafsanjani’s medical team was not with him when his health deteriorated, so he was rushed to the hospital but it was too late.”

Aftab News website reported that medical malpractice occurred when Rafsanjani first suffered the heart attack.

Whatever caused the death of the “Iranian political fox”, it sparked a debate regarding his political legacy in consolidating the pillars of the authoritarian Wilayat al-faqih regime and the openness and following reformers of the last two decades.