by Hugo Timms, spiked
The Islamic Republic has extensive financial and criminal interests in the UK.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, likes to present himself as a pious and self-sacrificing servant of the Islamist regime he has suddenly found himself leading. But there are limits to this humility. According to an investigative report by Bloomberg, Khamenei Jr has a property empire worth hundreds of millions of pounds in London alone, including 11 houses in Hampstead and two apartments in Kensington.
London has long had a reputation for being a second home for very rich Middle Eastern princelings. However, the portfolio of Khamenei, who was appointed as his father’s successor over the weekend, appears to be in a different league altogether. His houses in Hampstead are all reportedly on the Bishops Avenue, also known as ‘billionaire’s row’. His two homes in Kensington, as well as reportedly overlooking the Israeli embassy, are a short distance from Kensington Palace, the official home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Mojtaba Khamenei has done very well for himself indeed.
How this squares with the Islamic Republic’s view of the UK as ‘evil’ – a term used by his father, Ali Khamenei – isn’t immediately obvious. Indeed, despite the republic’s well known antipathy to the West, encapsulated in the regime’s ‘Death to America’ motto, many children of the Iranian leadership seem to prefer life in supposedly corrupt, irreligious societies such as America and the UK. It has been widely reported that the niece of Hassan Rouhani, a former president of Iran, works for Deutsche Bank in London. She is one of apparently 4,000 aghazedehs (Iranian nobles) who have ditched life in the Islamic Republic in favour of life in its supposed existential enemies.