Ms Afkhami said Alireza, who was 13 years old at the time, had until then experienced “near-adoration by those around him and seen the grandeur with which his father was treated”.
It was shocking for the boy “to witness that his father, whom all heads of state almost unanimously had courted and admired and flattered, was suddenly a pariah,” Ms Afkhami added.
She said Alireza had experienced a “loss of identity” while also being worried about developments in Iran following the end of his father’s regime.
