Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatullah Mojtaba Khamenei is injured but “safe and sound”, the son of the president said on Wednesday, offering the first official explanation for why the 56-year-old has not been seen since his appointment at the weekend.
“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.