DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has lengthy been seen as a protégé to Iran’s supreme chief and a possible successor for his place inside the nation’s Shiite theocracy.
Information of his helicopter making what state media described as a “onerous touchdown” on Sunday instantly introduced new consideration to the chief, who already faces sanctions from the U.S. and different nations over his involvement within the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.
In 2021, Raisi ran once more in an election that noticed all of his probably distinguished opponents barred for operating beneath Iran’s vetting system. He swept almost 62% of the 28.9 million votes, the bottom turnout by proportion within the Islamic Republic’s historical past. Hundreds of thousands stayed residence and others voided ballots.
Raisi was defiant when requested at a information convention after his election concerning the 1988 executions, which noticed sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that might turn into generally known as “demise commissions” on the finish of the bloody Iran-Iraq conflict.
After Iran’s then-Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, closely armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed throughout the Iranian border from Iraq in a shock assault. Iran blunted their assault.
The trials started round that point, with defendants requested to determine themselves. Those that responded “mujahedeen” have been despatched to their deaths, whereas others have been questioned about their willingness to “clear minefields for the military of the Islamic Republic,” in accordance with a 1990 Amnesty Worldwide report. Worldwide rights teams estimate that as many as 5,000 individuals have been executed. Raisi served on the commissions.
The U.S. Treasury in 2019 sanctioned Raisi “for his administrative oversight over the executions of people who have been juveniles on the time of their crime and the torture and different merciless, inhuman, or degrading remedy or punishment of prisoners in Iran, together with amputations.” It additionally talked about his involvement within the 1988 executions.
Iran finally is run by its 85-year-old supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However as president, Raisi supported the nation’s enrichment of uranium as much as near-weapons-grade ranges, in addition to it hampering worldwide inspectors as a part of its confrontation with the West.
On this photograph launched by the Iranian Presidency Workplace, President Ebrahim Raisi attends a gathering together with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev through the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Lady in Azeri, on the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, Might 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “onerous touchdown” on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, with out instantly elaborating. (Iranian Presidency Workplace by way of AP)
Raisi additionally supported attacking Israel in an enormous assault in April that noticed over 300 drones and missiles fired on the nation in response for a suspected Israeli assault that killed Iranian generals on the nation’s embassy compound in Damascus, Syria — itself a widening of a yearslong shadow conflict between the 2 nations.
He additionally supported the nation’s safety providers as they cracked down on all dissent, together with within the aftermath of the 2022 demise of Mahsa Amini and the nationwide protests that adopted.
The monthslong safety crackdown killed greater than 500 individuals and noticed over 22,000 detained. In March, a United Nations investigative panel discovered that Iran was answerable for the “bodily violence” that led to Amini’s demise after her arrest for not carrying a hijab, or scarf, to the liking of authorities.