Mojtaba Khamenei, who is widely considered the frontrunner to succeed as Iran’s Supreme Leader, reportedly sought medical treatment for impotence in the United Kingdom, as revealed by a confidential U.S. intelligence document.
At the age of 56, Mojtaba is allegedly poised to be named the successor to his father, Ali Khamenei. This development comes in the wake of Ali Khamenei’s demise, alongside 48 high-ranking officials from the regime, amid the ongoing Operation Epic Fury led by the United States and Israel.
A classified briefing, sent by the U.S. State Department to its embassy in London in 2008 and later disclosed by WikiLeaks, reveals that Mojtaba faced familial pressure to produce heirs. To address this, he underwent multiple treatments in the UK.
Mojtaba’s journey to fatherhood culminated after four visits, including a two-month stay, ultimately resulting in the birth of a son named Ali, in honor of his grandfather, the late Supreme Leader.
Intelligence reports indicate that Mojtaba married in 2004, relatively late by societal standards. This delay was attributed to his struggles with impotence, a condition reportedly alleviated through three extended medical visits to the UK.
The intelligence document specifies that these visits took place at London’s Wellington and Cromwell Hospitals, where Mojtaba received the treatments that eventually resolved his condition.
‘Mojtaba was expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment,’ it said.
‘After a stay of two months, his wife became pregnant. Back in Iran, a healthy boy was born, named Ali for his paternal grandfather.’
Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has replaced his father
The intelligence also detailed how ‘within the Supreme Leader’s office, Mojtaba works in his father’s shadow,’ and that he traveled with him in Iran and had a’ fair degree of control over access to his father.’
He was ‘widely viewed within the regime as a capable and forceful leader and manager who may someday succeed to at least a share of national leadership. His father may also see him in that light.’
He was said to be ‘close to and well briefed by’ the senior leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
‘Ali Khamenei is reportedly seen by some within the Leader’s Office as treating and consulting Mojtaba as he would an eventual successor to his responsibilities, rather than purely as an advisor,’ the report said.
However, Mojtaba was seen as weak in clerical terms.
‘(He) is not expected ever to achieve by his own scholarship the status of “mujtahid,” far less that of ayatollah,’ the report said.
‘Mojtaba reportedly is quite aware of his own limitations and does not appear to harbor an expectation of becoming sole Supreme Leader in his own right,’ it went on.
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After the death of his father the Revolutionary Guard pressed for Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed him
According to a US intelligence report Mojtaba was treated at the Cromwell Hospital in London
Mojtaba studied under a hardline cleric who advocated for development of nuclear weapons
However, in the wake of his father’s death, Iran’s Assembly of Experts, comprised of 88 clerics, has now reportedly elected him Supreme Leader, according to the Iran International TV network.
Clerics could announce the reclusive Mojtaba as successor as early as Wednesday morning, although some had reservations about putting him in danger of being targeted by the US and Israel, the New York Times reported.
The decision was reportedly made after the IRGC put strong pressure on the assembly.
The meeting itself took place online after the venue in the city of Qom, where the assembly was due to convene, was bombed.
Mojtaba’s selection had also been seen as unlikely because the regime has long criticized hereditary rule.
Indeed, his own father was against starting a dynasty.
Ali Khamenei, who was 86, had secretly named three potential successors before he died, none of whom was his son, the New York Times reported.
Those he did name were Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of the judiciary, his chief of staff Ali Asghar Hejazi, and Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
Mojtaba is Ali Khamenei’s second son and has an older brother Mostafa, who is also a cleric.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran after it was hit in Operation Epic Fury
The aftermath of an airstrike near the Ferdowsi square in central Tehran
In recent years Mojtaba had grown in his father’s estimation and also became one of the wealthiest people in Iran.
He may be a billionaire and has huge wealth stored in banks in the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Venezuela, and Africa, along with around $300 million in gold and diamonds, and Swiss bank accounts, according to the Arab-language Alquds Alarabi newspaper.
In January he was reported to have moved $328 million to Dubai using cryptocurrency.
Much of his wealth reportedly came from taxes on oil sold to China and India, according to the report.
His investments around the world reportedly include a $40 million mansion on a street known as ‘Billionaire’s Row’ in London.
In Iran, he is said to own a section of the upmarket Abbas Abad neighborhood in north-central Tehran, and vast swathes of land near the city of Mashhad.
He also reportedly has a private jet, a helicopter for urgent trips, a fleet of Mercedes vehicles, and horses.
As Supreme Leader he will now be the commander-in-chief of the regime’s armed forces and appoint the leaders of all military branches.
He will also have the final say on policy and choose the head of the judiciary,
Mojtaba was born in Mashhad in 1969 and later served in the Iran-Iraq war.
Studying theology in the city of Qom he was taught by a radical cleric known as the ‘Crocodile Ayatollah’.
Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, who died in 2021, was a prominent hardliner who advocated for developing nuclear weapons and once said: ‘The people are ignorant sheep.’
‘Mojtaba rose to prominence in 2009 when he helped orchestrate the election fraud that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term.
He also helped repress the Green Movement, the protests that emerged after that election.
Mojtaba Khamenei visits Hezbollah’s office in Tehran on October 1, 2024
Explosions in Tehran following coordinated military strikes by the United States and Israel
‘Mojtaba Khamenei also has a bleak human rights background,’ according to the Atlantic Council.
‘Mojtaba is extremely close to the leaders of the IRGC and also intimately knows the financial networks under the control of the Supreme Leader.
‘This has made some believe that Mojtaba has long been tapped to succeed his father, however awkward that would look in a country that experienced a bloody revolution to overturn two millennia of monarchical rule.’
In 2019 the US sanctioned him for ‘representing the Supreme Leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father.’
