Iran’s new Supreme Leader injured but ‘safe and sound’ despite injury, says president’s son

TEHRAN: Yousef Pezeshkian, son of President Masoud Pezeshkian, said that Ayatullah Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s newly appointed Supreme Leader, has been wounded but remains “safe and sound.” 

He provided the first official account of why the 56 year old has not appeared in public since being appointed at the weekend, after a report by The New York Times — citing three unnamed Iranian officials — said that Khamenei was wounded, including to his legs, but remained conscious and was staying in a highly secure location with limited communication.

“I heard news that Mojtaba Khamenei had been injured. I have asked some friends who had connections,” Yousef Pezeshkian, who is also a government adviser, wrote in a post on his Telegram channel.

“They told me that, thank God, he is safe and sound,” added the son of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Mojtaba, until now a low profile if powerful behind-the-scenes figure, was named Iran’s number one following the assassination of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an air strike at the start of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.

But there had been mounting questions about his whereabouts and physical condition after his appointment by the Assembly of Experts clerical body, with the new supreme leader yet to be seen, let alone speak, in public.

State television had called the new supreme leader a “wounded veteran of the Ramazan war” without giving details.

There has been speculation that he was injured in the day-time air strike on a compound in Tehran that led to the deaths of his father, as well as his mother and wife on the first day of the war on February 28.

The 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, a discreet figure who has rarely appeared in public or spoken at official events, has yet to address the nation or issue a written statement since he was declared supreme leader on Sunday.

His face has appeared on giant billboards in Tehran, with one showing him symbolically receiving the national flag from his father while the founding leader of the Islamic republic, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, looks on.

Posters of him were brandished by thousands of pro-government supporters at a huge rally in central Tehran on Monday.

His father lived the latter half of his life with a partially paralysed arm, having been injured in an assassination attempt in 1981 blamed on the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) group.