Dinastía Pahlavi de Irán.

It is with sadness and great grief that I am to inform my coutrymen living in IRAN or in exile, of the passing away of my daughter Leila Pahlavi in London during her sleep, in the night of 10th June 2001.

For the past few years, Leila was very depressed. Time had not healed her wounds. Exiled at the age of 9, she never surmounted the death of her father, His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to whom she was particularly close.

She was never able to forget the injustice and the dramatic conditions of our departure and the erring which was to follow. She could not stand living far from IRAN and shared wholeheartedly the suffering of her countrymen.

At a time when we have lost a person so dear, in the force of her age, my thoughts go towards our young compatriots who, in IRAN or in exile, also have difficulty in facing up to conditions of life over which they have no mastery.

Above all, Leila loved IRAN. She has left us without seeing her country again. Beyond the grief of a mother, this will always be a regret for me that nothing could ever fill.

The passing away of my beloved daughter brings me even closer to those Iranian mothers who have lived through the same mourning.

Paris, 11th June 2001.
Farah Pahlavi