Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday released a letter to mourn the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In the letter, published on Ahmadinejad’s official website and translated by the New York Times, the Iranian leader said that Chavez will rise again along with Jesus Christ and the Hidden Imam, a messianic figure to Shiite Muslims.
“I have no doubt he will come again along with all the righteous people and the Prophet Jesus and the only successor of the righteous generation, the perfect human,” Ahmadinejad wrote.
Ahmadinejad and Chavez developed a close bond over the years, a relationship that was largely predicated on a shared hatred of the United States. In the letter, Ahmadinejad also praised Chavez as “the Latin American anti-imperialist figure.”
