Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, owns two luxury apartments overlooking the Israeli Embassy in London and located about 50 meters from the compound, the British newspaper the Daily Mail reported Sunday. Security experts cited by the paper said the apartments could potentially be used to spy on Israeli diplomats at the embassy.
According to Israeli assessments, Khamenei was wounded in the opening strike of Operation Roaring Lion but survived and could now be in line to succeed his father as Iran’s supreme leader.
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The building where Mojtaba Khamenei’s luxury apartments are located
(Photo: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, Alamy Stock Photo / Daily Mail)
The report said Khamenei owns properties in Kensington in west London worth more than £50 million. Two of the apartments he owns overlook the Israeli Embassy building. The Daily Mail published what it said was an image of the building where the apartments are located, photographed by Alamy Stock. The units are on the sixth and seventh floors and include servants’ quarters on the ground floor. The building is located near Kensington Palace, the official residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Khamenei, 56, has owned the two apartments since 2014, though their ownership was only recently uncovered following an investigation by the U.S. news agency Bloomberg. According to that investigation, one apartment was purchased for £16.7 million and the second for £19 million.
Security experts said the apartments, located just meters from the Israeli Embassy, could potentially be used to monitor and document visitors entering the embassy compound. Roger McMillan, a security expert who previously served as head of security at Iran International — a London-based broadcaster affiliated with the Iranian opposition — told the newspaper that two apartments with a direct line of sight held by Mojtaba Khamenei are not simply part of a property portfolio but constitute “a permanent surveillance platform” and represent a serious security vulnerability.
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The London building where Khamenei’s son’s apartments are located
(Photo: Alamy Stock Photo / Daily Mail)
The Bloomberg investigation also found that Khamenei owns 11 mansions in Hampstead in north London through a shell company. Many of the properties are reportedly vacant. The report said Khamenei holds a global property portfolio worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
All 13 properties linked to Khamenei in London, including those in Kensington, have been subject to restrictions imposed by the British Treasury since October last year, preventing their sale for the time being.
The report about the apartments overlooking the Israeli Embassy comes two days after British authorities announced the arrest of four suspects linked to Iran on suspicion of surveilling Jewish sites. According to investigators, the suspects allegedly gathered information about synagogues in London and the people who attend them.