Mojtaba Khamenei will replace his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader, it has been confirmed.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, was killed in a US-Israeli strike on his personal compound on Saturday, setting off a wave of chaos in the Gulf. His clerical leadership of the Islamic Republic had lasted over 37 years.
His wife Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh and Mojtaba Khamenei’s wife Zahra Adel were also killed in the attacks, according to Iran.
The younger Khamenei, 56, was selected as the supreme leader by Iran’s Assembly of Experts, state media reported.
The Assembly of Experts is a powerful collective of 88 Islamic religious scholars who have all undergone a strict vetting process by the Guardian Council in order to determine their loyalty to the supreme leaders. Their duty is to appoint and supervise the supreme leader.
After pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the decision to elect Mojtaba Khamenei was made, according to Iran International, an independent news outlet.
Both father and son have vehemently expressed their opposition to hereditary rule, in accordance with Shia theological principles.
Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei is the second-oldest son of the late Ayatollah and has stayed out of public eye until recently.
Like his father, he has a background in both Islamic theology and the military and currently teaches advanced theology at a religious seminary in Qom.
He is considered a hardline conservative cleric with links to Iran’s IRGC.
Khamenei has studied Islam since leaving high school and was instructed by some of Iran’s most powerful scholars in Qom, where he trained to be a cleric. During the Iran-Iraq war, he served in the Iranian military between 1987 and 1988.
Of the former ayatollah’s six children, he is widely perceived as the most influential, despite having never formally held a position in public office.
In 2005 he was accused of meddling in presidential elections after conservative candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the race.
Reformist elements within the government, including Mehdi Karroubi, one of Ahmadinejad’s competitors, accused the “master’s son” of interfering. His father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said his son “is a master himself, not a master’s son”.
The Guardian reported that in 2009, Mojtaba Khamenei took over the Basij, an Iranian paramilitary group, in order to quell anti-government protests over the elections that year.
He is reported to own over 11 luxury properties in the UK through shell companies, according to a Bloomberg investigation. The buildings are valued at over $138m (£103m), including one on Bishop’s Avenue in north London, also known as Billionaire’s Row.
The Assembly of the Forces of Imam’s Line has denied allegations that Khamenei owns large financial assets. He was placed under US sanctions in 2019.
His selection will likely cause controversy in Iran with the Islamic Republic having posed as an alternative to the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s dynasty.
