Via CNS News:

Iran may be presenting a more benign face to the world as it negotiates an end to sanctions relating to its nuclear programs, but its supreme leader marked Monday’s 33rd anniversary of the death of an Irish republican hunger-striker to attack “tyrannical imperialists” and “global domineering empires.”

“Bobby Sands and exposing of his opponents’ power confirms what Islam teaches us: Glory days of tyrannical imperialists will come to an end,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in one of six messages relating to Sands posted on his Twitter feed (edited to remove hashtags, abbreviations etc.).

“We heard the message of Bobby Sands’ silent lips and strongly believe in it. This message is the message of the fall of global domineering empires,” said a second.

Another tweet described Sands as a “young Irish freedom fighter [who] resisted in a way that caught world’s attention” and a fourth charged that the British government “just watched him die.”

Khamenei also posted a sketch of an emaciated Sands, bearing the tag “Murdered.”

Sands, who was serving a 14-year prison term after being convicted in connection with a bombing and gun battle with police, died in Northern Ireland’s Maze prison on May 5, 1981, on the 66th day of a self-inflicted fast.