Obituary: Ali Mehravari

He passed away peacefully in his sleep in a palliative care centre in London, his son Nader said. “Reuters had been his life and his love.”

Mehravari reported on some of the most historically significant events of his era in the Middle East and met and interviewed some of his generation's most compelling figures. Among them were Mohammad Mosaddegh, King Faisal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Georges Pompidou, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Jimmy Carter.

In 1975, he was honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his achievements in journalism and foreign reporting for Reuters. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother bestowed the award upon him during a ceremony at the British Embassy in Tehran.

He retired in 1979 and afterwards became a member of The Reuter Society.

The writer Amir Taheri, a fellow Iranian countryman and journalist in pre-revolutionary Tehran, said Mehravari started his career as a reporter in 1942 when Iran was occupied by the Allies.

“He covered the departure of the British and American troops and then the expulsion of Stalin’s army from north-western Iran in 1946.” In 1950 he started as a stringer for Reuters and covered the oil nationalisation movement, the premiership of Mossadeq and the dismissal of his government by the Shah in 1953. “Mehravari became Reuters’ Tehran bureau chief in 1963 and remained in that position until the mullahs seized power in 1979 and decided to shut foreign news agencies,” Taheri said.

“Those familiar with Mehravari’s work remember him as an objective reporter, always capable of producing a good story. Those who knew him personally remember his kindness, courtesy, moderation and high ethical standards, in other words his humanity.”

The funeral will be at 2:30 pm on Tuesday 29 July at Gunnersbury Cemetery, London. ■