Ultra-conservative Shiite, long considered Khamenei’s success, accused of violent repression and human rights violations. Who is Ebrahim Raisi, President of Iran who was allegedly involved in a plane crash
The helicopter on which Iranian President Ebrahin Raisi was traveling crashed. Indeed, he had an unspecified accident. Or maybe he had to resort to an emergency landing. The president is said to be missing after the convoy of aircraft on which he was traveling crashed.
The news in these last (few) hours has been alternating between denials and confirmations. What is known for certain is what was disclosed by Iranian state TV, a statement that was followed by various other news reports and various other sources, often conflicting.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE INCIDENT IN EBRAHIM RAISI
At 3.08 pm Rome time, Iranian state TV broadcast the news of an accident that occurred in the convoy which included the helicopter in which the President of Iran was travelling, a Mil Mi 171 of Soviet production.
Raisi was traveling through eastern Azerbaijan, where he inaugurated a dam on the Aras River with President Aliyev early today. From then on everything became unclear. According to some sources it was an accident, according to others it was an emergency landing.
Just under half an hour after the first statement, Iranian press sources spread the news of widespread searches. Shortly afterwards, the authorities of Azerbaijan (in whose territory the accident took place) reported that President Raisi’s helicopter was still missing in a mountain area.
WHO IS EBRAHIM RAISI
Sayyid Ebrahim Raisol-Sadati (this is his full name) has been the 13th president of Iran since 3 August 2021, and is considered by many to be the favorite in the “succession” as supreme leader to Ali Khamenei, to whom he is particularly close. Raisi is also considered particularly close to the leadership of the Pasdaran, the much feared guards of the Islamic revolution, guilty of atrocious repression in the country.
Marking the political leadership of Rais, considered an intransigent in his country, was the breakdown of negotiations with the United States for the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear agreement, which imposed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear activity and wide margins for verification to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
RELIGIOUS AND JUDICIAL CAREER OF EBRAHIM RAISI
Ebrahim Raisi was born on December 4, 1960 in Mashhad, the holy city for Iranian Shiites. He lost his father at the age of 5. He graduated in Islamic law from Motahari University in Tehran after having attended the school of Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Mousavi Nezhad first and the school of Ayatollah Borujerdi in Qom in 1976. He was a student of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, Morteza Motahhari, Abolghasem Khazali, Hossein Noori Hamedani, Ali Meshkini and Morteza Pasandideh. He was one of Khomeini’s young revolutionaries.
In 1981 he became prosecutor of Karaj, a position he would later combine with that of prosecutor of Hamadan. He later becomes prosecutor of the province of Hamadan. He moved to Tehran for the first time in 1985, when he was appointed Deputy Prosecutor of the Iranian capital.
THE DEATH COMMITTEE
In 1988 Raisi he is one of the 4 members of the so-called “death committee”, the group responsible for the executions of political prisoners which bloodied Iran for 5 months at the end of 1988. Ebrahim Raisi was thus co-responsible for the death of internal opponents of the Iranian regime.
The “death committee” was created by Khomeini at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and was one of the instruments of persecution against the Mujahideen of the National Liberation Army of Iran.
EBRAHIM RAISI PRESIDENT OF IRAN
The 2021 presidential elections crown Raisi president of Iran, sanctioning the return to power of the ultra-conservative fringe of the Shiite clergy. Already 4 years earlier Ebrahim Raisi had challenged Hassan Rouhani for the presidency, but the latter had been elected with just under 60% of the preferences, in an election which saw the participation of over 70% of those entitled to vote, against a participation rate of around 50%. % recorded in 2021.
Ultra-conservative, Shiite, according to many, the “long arm” of the spiritual guide Ali Khamenei, Raisi has attracted criticism from the international community for the brutal and bloody repression of the various protest waves that have occurred in Iran since his election. In 2019, the US included him in the list of senior Iranian officials sanctioned due to human rights violations.
