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Late Shah's Daughter Found Dead

LONDON, June 11, 2001 (AP) - Leila Pahlavi, daughter of the late Shah of Iran, has been found dead in a London hotel, police said Tuesday. Photo here

The body of the 30-year-old woman was discovered by staff at the Leonard Hotel in west London on Sunday evening, they added.

Her mother, the former empress Farah Pahlavi, issued a statement in Paris on Monday evening saying the princess died in her sleep and that she had been ``very depressed.''

A post-mortem examination failed to reveal the cause of death, but there were no suspicious circumstances, a spokeswoman for Scotland Yard police headquarters said.

``It is classed as an unexplained death,'' said the spokeswoman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

Leila was the youngest of the five children of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, and the fourth by his third wife, Farah.

``It is with sadness and great grief that I am to inform our countrymen living in Iran or in exile of the passing away of my daughter,'' the former empress said.

``Exiled at the age of 9, she never surmounted the death of her father ... to whom she was particularly close,'' the statement said. ``She could not stand living far from Iran and shared wholeheartedly the suffering of her countrymen.''

Her mother said she was particularly pained by the fact that Leila died without having a chance to return to Iran.

``Beyond the grief of a mother, this will always be a regret for me that nothing could ever fill,'' the statement said. ``The passing away of my beloved daughter brings me even closer to those Iranian mothers who have lived through the same mourning.''

The shah ruled Iran from the 1940s until 1979, when his authoritarian government was toppled by Islamic fundamentalists. He died in Egypt in 1980, leaving behind his widow and children - Reza, Farahnaz, Ali Reza and Leila. He also had a daughter Shahnaz, from his brief first marriage to Fawzia, a sister of former Egyptian King Farouk.

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