Inside the shrine to the founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini performed his duty as its caretaker – politely greeting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and security force chiefs during an official memorial.

Later, Hassan Khomeini quietly slipped away from the ceremony earlier this month to visit the family of one of the imprisoned allies of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

This is the unique niche occupied by the 37-year-old cleric with an easy smile and ginger-colored beard: respected by the ruling system for his family lineage, but regarded with suspicion for his sympathies toward their foes.

So far, Khomeini has stayed in the wings during Iran’s political tempests that have followed last year’s disputed presidential election. He’s given nods to the opposition yet avoided streets protests or using the unmatched power of his family name on their behalf.

But pressures could build for Khomeini to take a more central role.

Iran’s hard-line Kayhan newspaper has denounced Khomeini for his “suspicious support” of opposition figures and hinted he was no longer fit to oversee the shrine to his grandfather or the institute dedicated to the ayatollah’s writings and speeches.

The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency has accused Khomeini of encouraging forces that seek to topple the system his grandfather founded.

In a rare public rebuttal, Hassan Khomeini complained last week that state media are manipulating the words of his grandfather. In a letter to the head of Iran’s state-run television, Khomeini accused the station of trying to link his grandfather’s comments about resistance to the Islamic Revolution to cast shadows on today’s opposition.

Hassan Khomeini is among 15 grandchildren of the ayatollah, but the only one with any significant public role.

Another of Khomeini’s grandchildren, Zahra Eshraghi, and her husband Mohammad Reza Khatami, who is the brother of former pro-reform president Mohammad Khatami, were held for less than an hour by security forces during the tense Feb. 11 events marking the Revolution anniversary.