Daughter Describes Final Days of Ayatollah

TEHRAN — The daughter of Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said Sunday that her father suffered five heart attacks in the 10 days after surgery May 23 for stomach cancer. He died June 3.

Confirming that her father had cancer, Zahra Mustafavi said Khomeini died in a small clinic near his home in north Tehran, where 40 Iranian physicians debated every aspect of his care and where every moment in his final days was recorded on a hidden videotaping system.

The clinic was taken over by Khomeini’s medical team nine years ago after his first serious heart attack and after concerns were raised that he might be the target of assassination attempts, for which medical facilities would be needed close by, the daughter said.

Speaking in her Tehran office, Mustafavi, 48, provided the most detailed accounting to date of her father’s medical problems in recent years during a 50-minute interview.

She also said that her brother, Ahmed, 44, has aspired since 1981 to become president, but the idea was rejected by her father, whom she quoted as saying, “As long as I am alive, I do not wish for him to have a position.”

Mustafavi said her own desire to become a member of Parliament had to be deferred by her father’s policy of keeping his children out of political posts while he was alive.

In the wake of her father’s death, Mustafavi said, her brother has sunk into a dejected mental state, from which she attempted to jar him Saturday with a pep talk after she had heard that he wanted to withdraw from active participation in national affairs. She quoted him as saying, “I am too tired. . . . I am finished,” but he added that he has not given up on the Islamic revolution.

Hinting that Iranian-U.S. relations, frozen by bitter grievances on both sides, might improve after her father’s death, she said Khomeini “always said the relationship between America and Iran is like a relationship between a wolf and a sheep, but officials change.”

Mustafavi, a university lecturer and women’s society organizer, answered questions in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official.

She joined other influential Iranians in praising the selection of Ali Khamenei as Iran’s new spiritual leader, saying her family is “really happy” about the choice.