“Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, like his esteemed father, owns no property, neither outside Iran nor inside the country.
The Iranian people are well aware of his simple and non-ostentatious lifestyle,” the Iranian Embassy in India stated.
The flats are said to be in a building on Palace Green in Kensington, the same street as the embassy.
The Evening Standard and the Daily Mail reported on Sunday that Mojtaba Khamenei owned two luxury apartments in west London that overlook the Israeli embassy.
The Times of London had also reported on March 5 that the apartment building in question sits next to the Israeli embassy on Palace Green.
The Iranian Embassy in India has dismissed claims made by media outlets, including the British national newspaper The Sunday Times, that Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei owned two apartments overlooking the Israeli embassy in London, calling the claims “completely baseless” and saying he owns no property anywhere.
“Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, like his esteemed father, owns no property, neither outside Iran nor inside the country. The Iranian people are well aware of his simple and non-ostentatious lifestyle,” the Iranian Embassy in India stated.
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The Iranian embassy went on to say that such baseless claims are made with the objective of creating “a false image of his life and character” that holds no credibility at all in the eyes of Iranians.
“Even now, the Iranian people, because of his simple way of life and the love and affection they have for him, have been taking to the streets for 190 consecutive nights in support of him,” it said.
Two apartments reportedly linked to Iran’s newly appointed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and located close to the Israeli embassy in London have been put on the market, The Sunday Times reported earlier this week. The flats are said to be in a building on Palace Green in Kensington, the same street as the embassy.
The British media had also reported earlier this year that the two apartments, on the sixth and seventh floors of the building, were acquired through intermediaries in 2014 and 2016. Those reports, citing information from a Bloomberg investigation into what it described as Khamenei’s international property empire, said the properties were only recently traced to him.
The Evening Standard and the Daily Mail reported on Sunday that Mojtaba Khamenei owned two luxury apartments in west London that overlook the Israeli embassy. The reports said the flats had been bought through various intermediaries and were later linked to him.
The Times of London had also reported on March 5 that the apartment building in question sits next to the Israeli embassy on Palace Green. The location of the building drew further attention after reports about the ownership of the flats emerged.
The reports came after four Iranian and British-Iranian men were arrested in London early on Friday on suspicion of surveilling “locations and individuals” linked to the city’s Jewish community. The Daily Mail quoted a terrorism and security specialist as saying that the position of the apartments means “Iran owns the view into the back of the Israeli Embassy from less than 50 metres away.”
The reports in British newspapers therefore linked the sale of the two Palace Green apartments with earlier claims about their ownership, their proximity to the Israeli embassy, and the wider scrutiny that followed the arrests in London.
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