Fact Check: Did a General Accused of Betraying Khamenei Suicide on Live Television?

The Israel–Iran conflict has intensified sharply as the United States and Israel continue attacks on Iranian military and strategic targets, with heavy bombardment reported in Tehran as the fighting enters its tenth day. Fresh waves of air strikes have hit Tehran and surrounding areas, including attacks on major oil storage depots and fuel facilities that triggered large fires and thick smoke across parts of the Iranian capital. Iran has responded with missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and United States assets across the Gulf region, raising fears that the conflict is spreading beyond the two countries. The continued exchange of attacks has widened the confrontation beyond Iran and Israel, with reports of military activity and air raids in other parts of the Middle East, including strikes in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, a video is going viral on social media claiming that the “general who betrayed” Khamenei committed suicide on live television. The clip shows a man briefly reciting the Islamic testimony of faith before shooting himself in the head.

The caption reads: “The general who betrayed the Iranian Supreme Leader, late Ali Ayatollah Khamenei, by revealing his location later repented and committed suicide during a live broadcast after reciting the shahada. Only Allah knows best.” Here's the screenshot of the claim.

Viral post is archived here.

Fact Check:

Video claiming general who betrayed Khamenei committed suicide on live television is fake. The video is from 2024.

To verify the claim, we conducted a reverse image search and found that the same video has been available online since October 2024 and is not recent. The results included a Reddit discussion from October 2024 where the clip was shared, along with a November 2024 fact-check by the Palestinian verification organisation Kashif. Kashif debunked the same video when it was falsely circulated with claims that it depicted an incident in the Palestinian city of Hebron.

On further search, we found several Kurdish media outlets, including Rojhelat News and Kurdistan Online, reporting on the incident in October 2024. According to these reports, a man named Zuhair Aminian from Baneh in Iran’s Kurdistan region died by suicide during an Instagram Live broadcast. The reports also noted that Aminian had been residing in the Khabat district near Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

Hence, the viral claim that the video shows a “general who betrayed Khamenei” committing suicide on live television is false. The clip has been circulating online since October 2024 and is related to the suicide of a man identified as Zuhair Aminian in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. There is no evidence linking the video to Iran’s current political or military developments.