Seyyed Hadi Khosroshahi –an Iranian cleric and diplomat who served as the first Iranian Ambassador to the Vatican – died from Covid-19 on 27 February 2020.
When he was 15 years old, Khosroshahi joined the leader of militant Fada’iyan-e Islam (Devotees of Islam), Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi, nicknamed Navvab Safavi. He was close to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Based on his interviews, in at least two cases, he sought Khomeini’s approval for the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s first President, Abolhassan Bani Sadr and Iran’s last Queen Farah Pahlavi, both living in exile in Paris. Khomeini rejected the idea, Khosroshahi maintained.
Khosroshahi was a prominent figure in the Qom Seminary and was a representative of Ayatollah Khomeini in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance after the victory of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After two years, he became the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic to the Vatican. He was the first Shi’a clergy serving and representing the Islamic Republic at the Vatican. While in the Vatican, he founded the Europe’s Islamic Culture Center, a base for propagating Shi’ism in the West. After serving in the Vatican, Khosroshahi was sent to Cairo, where he represented Tehran for two years at the Islamic Republic’s Interest Section.
The Israeli intelligence suspected that he had established a secret European network of Muslim extremists based in Rome.