Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, center, seen at an inauguration ceremony for Shahr-e Aftab in Tehran in June 2008.
Gooya News, a Persian news portal, is reporting that Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic revolution, has left Iran in protest of the upcoming inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The report states that Khomeini, 50, has "left Iran in protest of the current situation and against the pressures to attend Ahmadinejad's Presidential Inauguration."
Khomeini, a mid-level Iranian cleric whose primary responsibility is charge of his grandfather's 5000-acre masoleum site, has been openly critical of the administration in the weeks following the disputed presidential election in Iran and has aligned himself as sympathetic with those protesting the results. He made a three-day visit to Syria in early July at the invitation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in which he stressed the importance of Muslim unity.
Salaamnews, a pro-reformist website, is reporting that Khomeini has fled to an unnamed "neighboring country" to avoid pressure to attend next month's inauguration ceremonies.
Khomeini is a member of the Association of Combatant Clerics and a supporter of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He has denounced a nuclear Iran and has described the current regime as "a dictatorship of clerics who control every aspect of life."
His absence at the upcoming inauguration is said to be an embarrassment for government authorities, who would like to invoke the memory of the late grandfather of the missing Khomeini.
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