When Mojtaba Khamenei, the heir apparent to Iran’s Supreme Leader, touched down in London, he did so with an entourage that could rival those of world leaders. Accompanied by twenty bodyguards, several servants, and backed by an open credit line from Tehran, his visit was anything but low-key.

During their two-month stay, Mojtaba and his entourage made the Sheraton on Park Lane their temporary home, with the visit reportedly costing an eye-watering £1 million. Such a spectacle naturally drew attention, as the future leader of Iran indulged in the luxuries of London.

The trip, however, was not primarily for leisure. Mojtaba and his wife, Zahra Haddad-Adel, embarked on this journey for a very personal reason. The couple sought fertility treatment in Britain after facing difficulties in conceiving. Their quest proved successful, with the birth of their son Bagher within the year, a child colloquially known as the ‘million-pound boy’ due to the extravagant nature of his parents’ London stay.

Mojtaba’s ties to London extend beyond this memorable visit. Reports suggest that individuals linked to him have amassed a collection of high-end properties in some of London’s most prestigious neighborhoods, with a total value estimated at around £100 million.

Among these prized assets are two opulent apartments located in the exclusive Palace Green area of Kensington. These properties boast a prime location, situated directly across from Kensington Palace and in proximity to the Israeli embassy, underscoring the high-profile connections and influence surrounding Mojtaba Khamenei.

Among the most luxurious are two eye-watering apartments in Kensington’s Palace Green – a building opposite Kensington Palace and overlooking the Israeli embassy, no less.

From the upper floors there is a direct view into the embassy compound. For a regime that routinely calls for Israel’s destruction, the idea that figures tied to Iran’s ruling circle own property with a clear line of sight into one of Israel’s most sensitive diplomatic sites in London is alarming, to put it mildly.

Then there is London’s notorious ‘Billionaires’ Row’ – The Bishops Avenue – where several properties have been linked to a network associated with Mojtaba through a sanctioned Iranian banker called Ali Ansari.

Mojtaba Khamenei is the son and heir of Ali Khamenei and is now Iran’s new Supreme Leader

Investigations have pointed to a cluster of mansions bought through offshore vehicles tied to Ansari, including Jersey House, a vast gated residence worth more than £30 million.

Records suggest several houses on the avenue were snapped up through Isle of Man shell companies in deals worth more than £70 million. Like many properties on the street – famous for its empty palaces owned by oligarchs, Gulf princes and foreign elites – several appear unoccupied. Ownership sits buried beneath layers of offshore firms and nominee directors, making it difficult to trace. But Mojtaba has been linked to these mansions by the respected US financial media company Bloomberg.

It is all part of a familiar pattern: a revolutionary leader – in this case the Shia cleric and politician now in charge of Iran – who spends his days denouncing

Western decadence while surreptitiously parking enormous wealth in London’s most expensive postcodes.

Decades on from that summer of fertility treatment, the Khamenei story has taken a grim twist. Mojtaba’s wife Zahra and Bagher, the boy they conceived back then, were killed last week alongside Ali Khamenei in Israeli-US strikes that tore through Iran’s leadership and cleared the path for him to take his father’s place.

So who exactly is Khamenei Junior?

It’s an important question – not just for Iranians but the watching world. Both will suffer the consequences of his rule.

For years, while regime figures stalked the world stage, Mojtaba stayed largely hidden. Now 56, he has never delivered a public speech nor given an interview. His name, however, has long carried weight far beyond his public profile. He is the second son of Ali Khamenei – the Supreme Leader had six children, four sons and two daughters – and grew up inside the innermost chamber of revolutionary power.

Posters of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, the successor to his late father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

He did not climb to the top through elected office. Instead, he simply positioned himself right next to Iran’s most powerful man – his father. Those who wanted access to the Supreme Leader often had to go through him and he gained immense leverage as a result.

And if his princeling status is one slap in the face to the Republic’s ideology, his very average religious credentials are another.

All Supreme Leaders must be Grand Ayatollahs, the highest religious rank in Shia Islam. Yet until his appointment, Mojtaba was only a Hojjatoleslam, a mid-ranking cleric. (His father had the same problem, and then, as now, the regime fudged it).

Western governments noticed his power early on. In 2019 the US sanctioned Mojtaba, describing him as someone who represented the Supreme Leader in an official capacity. According to the US Treasury, toward the end of his life Ali Khamenei had effectively delegated parts of his authority to his son.

Beyond this, it is his relationships with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary arm, the Basij – forged when he fought as a teenager in the vicious 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq, serving in the elite 27th Mohammad Rasulullah Division – that are widely seen a cornerstone of his power.

The importance of these organisations extends far beyond their military capabilities: they are the regime’s shield and sword, the institutions that brutally enforce loyalty at home, as we saw in the bloodstained crackdown on protesters in January, and who project power abroad.

Control those networks, and you control Iran.

His alignment with them also tells you something about Mojtaba’s political instincts. He has long been seen as a hardliner, deeply hostile to reformist politicians who once dreamed of opening Iran to the outside world.

Mojtaba Khamenei became a symbol of the regime’s most ruthless instincts after demonstrators for the Green Movement were beaten, jailed, tortured and, sometimes, killed

During the mid-2000s he was widely believed by critics to have played a role in the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ruthless populist who became president in 2005.

Ahmadinejad’s presidency marked one of the most confrontational periods in modern Iranian politics. When the disputed 2009 election for his second term triggered mass protests which became known as the Green Movement, the regime responded with brute force. Basij units flooded the streets. Demonstrators were beaten, jailed, tortured and, sometimes, killed.

Many Iranians came to associate Mojtaba Khamenei with that crackdown. He became a symbol of the regime’s most ruthless instincts. He has blood on his hands.

In recent years Mojtaba has begun to edge out of the shadows. Figures inside the establishment openly touted him as a future supreme leader. Knowing the desperation for change among ordinary Iranians, a few tried to present him as a reformer. The regime even wheeled out a hugely reactionary cleric from Qom as a possible successor to Khamenei so they could paint Mojtaba as a moderniser by comparison.

But the truth is the opposite. The IRGC, the intelligence services, and the Basij militias are now the rigidly conservative institutions that underpin the regime – and Mojtaba is at one with them. He is an autocrat in clerical robes backed by the oppressive machinery of state brutality.

Some of the most striking portraits of Mojtaba personally come from defectors who once moved inside the regime’s inner world.

One of them is a former insider who says he studied alongside the new Supreme Leader in the seminaries of Qom.

Jaber Rajabi has publicly described him as even more extreme than his father.

Worse, Rajabi believes him to be a man driven by fanatical and ideological conviction, and convinced that he has a providential role to play in history by overseeing the destruction of Israel.

‘Mojtaba Khamenei is more dangerous than 50 nuclear bombs,’ he warned in an interview before the war. ‘Mojtaba Khamenei believes he… will lead the army carrying the black banners to liberate Jerusalem.’

The picture that emerges of the new Leader is terrifying. A man shaped by secrecy, financial corruption, the most brutal security networks and ideological fanaticism.

Given the death of so many members of his family last week we can add two more factors to the list: rage – and a remorseless desire for revenge.