Alireza Pahlavi, younger son of Iran’s last monarch committed suicide in his Boston home yesterday.
In an announcement on the site of his elder brother, Reza Pahlavi, the “injustices that his dear country is subjected to” and the deaths of his father and sister are cited as the roots of his depression.
The announcement which is signed by the whole Pahlavi family indicates that he had been wrestling with depression for long and finally lost the battle to his condition yesterday at his home.
Alireza Pahlavi was born in 1966 in Tehran, the third child of Mohammadreza Pahlavi and Farah Pahlavi.He left Iran at the age of 12 as the 1979 Revolution replaced the monarchy with the consequent clerical regime.
He pursued his education in Princeton and Columbia University and then went on to Harvard to pursue a degree in Pre-Islamic Iran Studies and Philosophy.
The family also lost the youngest daughter of Mohammadreza Shah, Leila Pahlavi about ten years ago when she was found dead in a hotel in London. She is said to have also suffered from depression and died from an overdose of prescription drugs.
