British Iranians hope to return home after Ayatollah Khamenei’s death

British Iranians have said Ayatollah Khamenei deserved to die in the rubble as they celebrate the decimation of the brutal regime.

The expats, who fled Iran for freedom in the West, wept and danced with joy after the US and Israel wiped out the leadership of Iran and its military over the weekend.

They told Metro of their hopes they will soon be able to return home to rebuild their country, confident their fellow countrymen and women will take to the streets to kick out Mullahs.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was found dead and riddled with shrapnel wounds after his Tehran compound was struck with as many as 30 bombs on Saturday.

Former political prisoner Nasrin Roshan, 62, said she immediately thought of her time in Iranian jail when she heard that the supreme leader had been assassinated.

The pro-democracy activist told Metro: ‘My future suddenly became bright. When I was in jail, I thought I was going to die.

‘I saw my own friends being executed in prison. They would wake us up and show us the dead bodies from the night before.

‘The Ayatollah deserved to die like that. I am so happy the dictator is gone.’

Ms Roshan, who spent a total of five and a half years in Iranian prisons since the age of 18, said celebrated the news of US and Israeli military strikes in front the US embassy.

She had spent days protesting outside the building in Vauxhall over the last few months, calling for the US administration to act.

‘Every single day, we were shouting for Trump to act, now we are shouting for him to keep going until every dictator is gone and my country is free.

‘We want the war to continue until the government falls.’

The former prisoner, like the other Iranians who spoke to Metro, wants to see Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi take over the country.

The son of the exiled Shah of Iran has promised to transition his country to a democratic system.

Trump has called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime after he has completed airstrikes on the country.

If that happens, Ms Roshan will ‘go straight to the airport’.

She said: ‘I would come back to the UK for holidays. Thank you for accepting us for 47 years. But it is not my home. My home is Iran.’

Ahmed Vahdat, 59, received a call from his brother, who lives in Iran, while on the phone to Metro.

His brother said his family are sheltering beneath the buildings in the basement of their apartment in Tehran, which is being bombarded ‘non-stop’.

Iran has been struck by waves of Israeli and US missile strikes since the intervention began on Saturday.

The regime has retaliated by targeting US bases across the Middle East and firing indiscriminately at cities in the Gulf, like Dubai and Doha.

Mr Vahdat said ‘no human being would like to see his or her country being attacked by another country’.

However he welcomed the assassination of the country’s supreme leader who ’caused a lot of death, destruction and misery’.

Mr Vahdat, who came to the UK as a student around the time of the 1979 revolution, said Iran is a ‘very polarised society’ but that the exiled Crown Prince has ‘massive support’ to eventually lead the country.

He added:  ‘I don’t think anyone think the transition could take place while the war is taking place.

‘All these transitions will naturally happen once the dust has settled.’

Sharan Tabari said she toasted the Ayatollah’s downfall on Saturday night with a glass champagne.

The former councilor came to the UK as a student before the 1979 revolution and returned to Iran when the Mullahs came to power.

‘In two or three weeks, I knew I was completely wrong.

‘The regime held Iran hostage for 47 years. They were the enemy from within.

‘There is a river of blood between this government and their people.’

Donald Trump himself said that more than 32,000 people were killed by Iranian security forces suppressing the protests in Iran in January and February.

The Labour party member said she was ‘disappointed’ that Sir Keir Starmer chose not to participate in strikes against Iran.

However Ms Tabari said she didn’t blame the Prime Minister for the decision and instead praised Israel and the US for taking responsibility for ousting the current regime.

She called the Crown Prince an ‘amazing man’ and said Iranians ‘won’t stand until he is in the job’.

Ellie Borhan, 43, who came to the UK from Iran at the age of 20, said part of her wishes that Ayatollah Khamenei was made to stand trial.

The leading activist, who founded the Stage of Freedom group, told Metro: ‘I wish I could have seen him brought to justice, humiliated and powerless.

‘He should have faced the full weight of his crimes.

‘And yet, despite these feelings, I am truly happy that he is gone. He is gone, and an era of his crimes has come to an end.’

Ms Borhan thanked the US President for unleashing strikes on her come country, adding that now millions of he compatriots in exile are waiting to return home to Iran.

Bita, 38, said the current military situation in Iran ‘feels like the beginning of the end’.

She has lived in the UK since the age of 10 when he family left Iran in the 1990s.

Despite being ‘relieved’ by Ayatollah’s Khamenei’s death, she said she was sad ‘because we know the Islamic Republic will retaliate when people take to the streets’.

The activist, who did not share her second name, told Metro: ‘There is a sense of justice that has been served.

‘One of the greatest dictators of all time who has now been wiped off the face of the planet.

‘But he was the figurehead. We do not believe just because he is gone, we are done.

‘There is a lot of work to be done before we reach freedom.’

She said she was confident that while the US and Israeli intervention would give them ‘a leg up’, it would be the Iranian people who will ‘take to the streets’ and take over the government.

Although the US President has questioned the support for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi inside Iran, Bita was confident he had a ‘clear plan’ for after the collapse of the regime.

She said that millions of Iranians would follow his call to overthrow the government when he judges that the time is right to rise up.

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