Mossadegh nationalised Iran's oil, was overthrown in a CIA and MI6 coup, and was buried under the floor of his own house

In March 1951 Iran's parliament passed a law nationalising the oil industry, and Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister in April. On 19 August 1953 a coup planned and financed by the CIA and MI6 overthrew him. He was tried for treason and served three years in solitary confinement, then ten years of house arrest. He spent them at Ahmadabad, a village he had once owned, about 60 miles from Tehran. On 11 December 1965 he wrote a two-page will. It left his real estate to his children, his first year's income to more than a dozen named employees, and his second year's income to a student club at Tehran University. He asked to be buried in the Freedom Cemetery beside the "martyrs of 30 Tir" and his foreign minister, Hossein Fatemi, with only his children and close relatives present. He died on 5 March 1967; an announcement gave internal bleeding as the cause. An Associated Press report said his body went to a temporary burial site in Ahmadabad, followed by his two sons, his son-in-law and a handful of sympathisers. The burial request was refused, and he was buried in a room of his house. In 2020 the house stood behind a three-metre metal gate, and no one was allowed to visit the grave.