US sanctions Khamenei's son and a number of his close associates
The US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Mojtaba Khamenei and several other individuals, including the head of the office of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Other individuals, including Velayati, an advisor on international affairs, and Vahid Haqqaniyan, deputy for special affairs in Khamenei's office, have also been sanctioned.
The United States Treasury Department sanctioned nine close associates and appointees of the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, including his son, Mojtaba, on the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran (November 4).
According to Reuters, Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of the office, and Vahid Haqqaniyan, deputy for special affairs in Khamenei's office, are also on the sanctions list.
Other names also appear on this list, including Ebrahim Raisi, Khamenei's appointee as head of the judiciary, and Ali Akbar Velayati, the Islamic Republic's leader's advisor on international affairs.
Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Hossein Dehghan, former Minister of Defense, Gholamali Rashid, Commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, and Gholamali Haddad Adel, former Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, are among the other individuals on the US Treasury Department's newly sanctioned list.
Haddad Adel is one of Khamenei's advisors and close associates and the father-in-law of his son, Mojtaba. Like Velayati, he is known as "Abul-Mashaghel" due to his numerous responsibilities in the government apparatus.
In a statement, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the sanctioned individuals as a number of Khamenei's close associates who, he said, play a role in implementing the destabilizing policies of the Islamic Republic's leader.
The perpetrators of the government's "evil actions"
According to the US Treasury Secretary, the actual individuals sanctioned on the list published on November 4 are appointed officials who have been involved in a large number of "malign acts" by the Islamic Republic government, including the bombing of the US Marine Corps base in Beirut in 1983 and the bombing of the Jewish Assistance Center (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires in 1994.
They are also accused of torture, extrajudicial killings, and repression of Iranian citizens. The Argentine judiciary believes that the plot to blow up the Jewish center in Tehran was hatched and carried out by a team from Lebanese Hezbollah led by Imad Mughniyeh.
In early 2007, the Argentine Attorney General requested an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Police for Imad Mughniyeh and eight Iranian officials, including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Velayati, Ali Fallahian, then-Minister of Intelligence, and Mohsen Rezaei, then-Commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah commander close to the Islamic Republic's officials, was killed in a bomb explosion in Damascus in February 2008.
Khamenei and the “Epic of Imad Mughniyeh”
In a message to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Leader of the Islamic Republic attributed the killing of Imad Mughniyeh to Israel and called his death an epic that "awakens nations and sets an example for the youth."
Emad Mughniyeh's parents met with Khamenei in March 2012, and his daughter a year later. In October 2018, after the death of Emad Mughniyeh's mother, a representative of Khamenei's publishing office visited her home in Beirut and presented her family with a picture of the Leader of the Islamic Republic and Emad's parents.
These can be seen as a sign of the high status of a man with the Leader of the Islamic Republic who is accused of involvement in a number of explosive and terrorist operations, the planning of which has been attributed to Tehran.
Source: DW
