Infighting in Iran: Family feud AS A presidential election approaches in June, the power struggle within Iran's ruling circle is becoming more vicious. On February 3rd the outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, astonished members of parliament. In the middle of a speech, he played them a videotape that sought to incriminate one of the most powerful families in the land, the Larijanis. The next day the chief prosecutor in the capital, Tehran, announced that one of the most notorious of the country's former prosecutors, Saeed Mortazavi, whom critics have dubbed "the butcher of the press" and "the torturer of Tehran," had been arrested and held in jail; he was released a few days later. No reason was given, though Mr Mortazavi, a close ally of the Larijanis, had featured adversely in the damning videotape. Two days later Mr Ahmadinejad flew to Cairo for the first visit by an Iranian head of state to Egypt since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. No one outside the regime's murky inner circle knows how the row will end or what it could mean for Iran's future. But the gloves are off. Mr Mortazavi had apparently been under investigation for his alleged role in the deaths of opposition activists in the wake of the disputed presidential election of 2009. In the videotape Fazel Larijani, one of five brothers who have all held powerful posts in the regime, was shown suggesting that the probe could be quashed in return for financial favours. Another brother, Sadeq Larijani, is head of Iran's judiciary. Yet another, Ali Larijani, a former presidential candidate, is the current speaker of parliament. He accused Mr Ahmadinejad of "waging war on God" by accusing a good Muslim of corruption with insufficient evidence - and threw the president out of parliament. "The judiciary is not a special family organisation," said Mr Ahmadinejad, according to Iran's state news agency, attacking the Larijanis as a whole. This comes on the heels of an edict issued in November by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, explicitly prohibiting political infighting before the election. In response, Mr Ahmadinejad, with studious ambiguity, thanked him for shutting up political figures who talked out of turn and reminded him of the value of the presidency and the constitution. The president described Mr Mortazavi's detention, albeit brief, as "very ugly." It must be investigated on his return from Egypt, he said.