US Vice-President JD Vance and Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. US Vice-President JD Vance on Tuesday said that the best evidence available to Washington suggests that Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive, although the US does not know for certain. "We think that he's alive. We don't know, of course," Vance said in an interview with commentator Vince Coglianese. "I've never seen him. I haven't seen him on camera recently. The best evidence we have suggests that he is alive." Khamenei, 56, has not been seen or heard in public since becoming Iran's supreme leader on 8 March, following the death of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His prolonged absence has fuelled speculation about his condition. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has rejected concerns over Khamenei's health. In a recent interview, he said he had seen the supreme leader about a month earlier and reported "no major challenges" with his health or appearance. Speaking to Fox News's Bret Baier, Pezeshkian was asked whether he had seen Khamenei in person a month earlier. He said yes. Asked whether the supreme leader was healthy and able to govern, he replied: "Very much so completely." Pezeshkian said their meeting had lasted about seven hours. He described the two men sitting on pillows on the floor and standing at times to walk around. The comments came after an Iranian cleric claimed that Khamenei had been injured during the opening strikes of the war and had been pulled from the rubble of a hospital in Tehran. Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, told Qatari broadcaster Al Araby that Khamenei was taken to hospital after being wounded in the strikes that killed his father on 28 February. "Even after he had been wounded and taken to the hospital, three hospitals in Tehran were bombed," Heydari said. "Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and was pulled from the rubble." Heydari also said Khamenei did not know he had been selected to succeed his father until the decision was announced on Iranian state television. He said the Assembly of Experts had been forced to conduct the selection process under tight security after its secretariat in Qom was bombed. Eight people were killed in the attack and reports and recommendations concerning the selection of a new supreme leader were destroyed, he claimed. US intelligence reports have reportedly suggested that Khamenei was badly disfigured in the attacks. US President Donald Trump said last month that he did not believe the Iranian leader was dead. "I don't think he's dead," Trump said. "He was very seriously wounded. The left side of his body, the arm, the leg, the whole thing. He was very seriously wounded, but I don't think he's dead."