Iran announces president's death in helicopter crash
Iran today announced the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan province.
Ibrahim Raisi was born in Mashhad in November 1960 and began his political career at a very young age, when he was appointed prosecutor of the city of Karaj at the age of twenty, shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Raisi came close of three decades in the judiciary and held several positions, including that of Tehran's prosecutor general between 1989 and 1994, deputy head of the judiciary from 2004 to 2014, and then the country's attorney general.
Raisi was married to Jamila Alam al-Hoda, a professor at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, and they have two daughters. He was a relative of Hujjat al-Islam Ahmad Alam al-Huda, the Friday Imam and representative of the Supreme Leader in Mashhad.
Raisi assumed the presidency of Iran in August 2021 after winning the June 2021 elections, receiving 17.95 million votes out of 28.6 million, or approximately 62% of the vote. These elections were characterized by a participation rate of 48.8%, the lowest since the Iranian revolution.
Raïssi carried the anti-corruption slogan during his electoral campaign, presenting himself as an enemy of corruption and the aristocracy. He was known for his cruelty and extreme stances against the West, and the United States accused him of human rights violations and imposed sanctions on him in 2019.
Raïssi lost the presidential election in 2017 to Hassan Rouhani. Although he wore a black turban, he did not have the rank of “Ayatollah”, but rather “Hujjat al-Islam”. Raisi was close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and held several positions through his appointment, including head of the judiciary in 2019 and head of the Astan Quds Razavi Foundation, which manages the Imam Reza shrine.
Through his presidency of the Astan Quds Razavi Foundation, Raisi gained great political and economic influence, and Khamenei later appointed him head of the judiciary, where he began trying high-ranking officials for corruption.
Raisi also served as a deputy prosecutor of Iran's Revolutionary Court in the 1980s and supported the harsh crackdown on “Green Movement” protests in 2009, pledging to confront the “rioters” to the end.
Ebrahim Raïssi left a huge mark on Iranian politics and his death represents a great loss for Iranian leaders.
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