Ahmadinejad showed signs of buckling to the pressure. An adviser to the president, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, said in a statement carried on official news Web sites late Friday that after the letter from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was disclosed, Mashaei conceded that he was no longer first vice president. 'In face of this decree, I don't believe myself to be the first vice president,' Hashemi quoted Mashaei as saying.But Ahmadinejad himself did not give any word that he had accepted the decision. The weeklong campaign against Mashaei has been an added challenge for Ahmadinejad, already under pressure by reformists who consider his re-election in June a fraud. According to Khamenei's Web site, the July 18 letter described the appointment of Mashaei as 'contrary to your own and your government's interests.' 'You are requested to reverse this appointment,' it said. Meanwhile, high-ranking clerics from both sides of Iran's political spectrum traded warnings. Relatives mourned the son of a top aide to Mohsen Rezai, a prominent conservative politician, who died in Evin Prison in Tehran, the capital, after being detained in the unrest. The death of 25-year-old Mohsen Ruholamini, son of a prominent scholar, kept a spotlight on the conduct of security forces and uniformed militiamen during the unrest while complicating hard-liners' efforts to paint the demonstrators as foreign dupes. Questions surround the Mashaei controversy. Though some analysts have said hard-liners oppose him because of friendly comments he made last year toward Israel, others say he is a member of a secretive sect, the Hojjatieh, with a messianic worldview so extreme that Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini outlawed it. A videotape posted online shows Mashaei making a speech in line with Hojjatieh philosophy. Ahmadinejad has described Mashaei as a 'pious man who is a devotee of Imam Mahdi,' a Shiite saint whose return is to herald a new age, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. Several weeks before the June 12 election, Rezai said the president was 'surrounded by dangerous individuals' pushing the country toward a precipice. Many considered that to be a jab at the messianic bent of some of Ahmadinejad's inner circle. Others describe Mashaei, born in 1960 in the Caspian Sea town of Ramsar, as an opportunist who has parlayed his longtime friendship with Ahmadinejad, his in-law, into a position of power. According to several sources, the two men met in the 1980s serving in the Revolutionary Guard. Mashaei cultivated strong ties to the intelligence and propaganda divisions of the Revolutionary Guard, as well as the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, where he served in the 1990s. In 2004, Ahmadinejad named him to a position within the Tehran municipality. Publicly, conservatives say they despise him for his comments about Israel last year, which he has since strenuously disavowed. (Begin optional trim) On Friday, a news Web site quoted Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf as accusing Mashaei and his wife of supporting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an outlawed Iranian exile group, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist group. He said Mashaei's wife was a former member of the group and the pair met in prison, where he was her interrogator. A source close to the Mashaei family confirmed that, saying she had been sentenced to hang when he proposed to marry her to save her from the gallows. (End optional trim) In addition to fighting within itself, the hard-line camp continues to come under attack by reformists. Ayatollah Assadollah Bayat Zanjani, a supporter of Ahmadinejad's election rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, issued a stern warning against conservatives. 'Dominance and authority do not grant any legitimacy, which depends on public confidence,' he said in a statement. 'I warn the authorities to be afraid of divine vengeance and take lessons from the fate of the former Soviet Union.' Treatment of protesters detained or hurt during the recent unrest continues to energize the demonstrators. Ruholamini, a computer science engineer, was reportedly arrested during a July 9 protest. His family was informed Tuesday night that he had died. His father Abdul-Hossein Ruholamini, was a senior adviser to Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guard commander who ran as a conservative against Ahmadinejad. On Thursday, police arrested the father of Massoud Hashemzadeh, a 27-year-old musician killed in the unrest, after his family insisted on placing mourning banners outside their home. (Optional add end) The mother of another young man killed in the unrest, Sohrab Aarabi, addressed the Tehran City Council this week. Her speech was videotaped and posted to the Internet. 'I still can't eat,' Parvin Fahimi told the council. 'My throat clenches up, and I've only sustained myself with liquids these recent times.' 'Why did they kill my child?' she demanded. 'On whose orders? I want to ask the city council, what did Sohrab want ... other than freedom of expression?' 