Officially he was guilty of sedition, murder, and related charges, but others suspect his true crime was opposition to the regime's secret dealings with the United States within the Iran–Contra affair.

[1] Hashemi first became known to the Iranian public during the closing days of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1977 when SAVAK arrested him for the vigilante murder of "prostitutes, homosexuals, and drug traffickers".

During this time he was supported by opponents of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an innocent victim framed by SAVAK, in an attempt "to tarnish the reputation of the clerical establishment.

[citation needed] Hashemi opposed the Iranian government's efforts to obtain scarce weapons and spares for the Iran–Iraq War from the United States and Israel, and provide assistance to the Reagan Administration in releasing US citizens held hostage by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In regards to his work in Montazeri's bureau of assistance to the Islamic movements, in the world he said: I now realize that despicable sinners like myself had no business inside the heir-designate's office.

In August 1987, after the confession was made public, Hashemi was tried by a Special Clerical Court on charges of "sowing corruption on earth, inciting fitna, succumbing to Satan, and desecrating the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution.

"[12] Specifically, according to Reyshahri, that meant raiding and abetting the Mojahedin having an ongoing relationship with SAVAK, smuggling opium from Afghanistan and eliminating one of Montazeri's rivals by "inducing the spread of cancer through his body."

On another note, one of Hashemi's few dozen co-defendants, Omid Najafabadi, who was a Revolutionary Court judge and the religious jurisprudent, or Hakem-e-Shaar, of Esfahan, was also executed; the others were all pardoned or given light sentences.