Iran | Accused of mass murders, trusted by the Ayatollah – This is the president who got into a helicopter crash

Iran’s the president Ebrahim Raisia having carried it was reported that the helicopter had an accident on Sunday.

Raisia, 63, has been considered the country’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei as a student, trusted and successor candidate.

In Iran, the president is the highest-ranking elected leader. However, the supreme leader of the country is Ayatollah Khamenei instead of the president.

Raisi’s views are conservative both in economic matters and in foreign policy. He has been very suspicious of the West. According to Raisi, Iran must be self-sufficient in food production, among other things, in order to be able to resist Western sanctions.

Crotch was born in 1960 in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city. He followed in his father’s footsteps to become a priest and studied in the Shiite holy city of Qom. There he also took part in anti-shah demonstrations. The title Shahi was used in Iran for the ruler before the 1979 revolution.

Raisi’s career as a lawyer took off after the revolution. He gradually rose to become the Attorney General in 2014. He rose public in 2016, when Khamenei appointed him head of the devout religious foundation.

Raisi’s rise to become one of Iran’s most influential politicians was confirmed in 2019 when he was appointed as the President of the Supreme Court. In addition, he was appointed deputy head of the so-called Council of Experts, which selects the successor to Iran’s supreme leader.

The dark period of his career is related to the 1980s, when he served as the “revolutionary prosecutor” of the Iranian regime. In the first years of the Islamic Republic, he was involved in political trials.

The opposition and human rights organizations have brought up the fact that Raisi, who served as Tehran’s deputy prosecutor, was partly responsible for the mass executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.

Ebrahim Rais’s election ad just before the June 2021 presidential election. Picture: Kaveh Rostamkhani

Crotch was elected president only in a second attempt in 2021. The Iranians themselves did not consider the elections to be genuine at that time.

The reason for the cynicism was that although Iranians choose the president through direct elections, the candidates are approved by the Council of Supervisors, whose members are appointed by Khamenei.

So Rais’ competitors were eliminated in advance so that he had no real opponents to be taken seriously in the elections.

Raisi won the election with 62 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was exceptionally low, i.e. less than 50 percent, because the result of the election was considered clear in advance. Raisi collected the most votes, but he was not considered the winner.

Raisi himself claimed after his election as president that he should be rewarded for defending human rights as a jurist and judge.

“Everything I have done during my years of service has been aimed at defending human rights,” Raisi said.

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Rais’ competitors were eliminated so that he had no real opponents to be taken seriously.

Iran have been shaken by several crises during the Raisi season.

22 years old Mahsa Amini died in September 2022 after being arrested by the morality police for reasons related to wearing a headscarf. The Iranian regime used violence to quell the protests sparked by the death. Demonstrators have also been executed.

Recently, the mood has been strained by, among other things, the war in Gaza. Israel’s attack on Gaza following the Hamas terrorist attack caused a strong reaction in Iran. In April, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and rockets at Israel.

Iran has also continued its nuclear program and warmed its relations with Russia. It has armed Russia, for example, with bombers.

Ebrahim Raisi met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last December. Picture: Sergei Bobylyov / Newspaper photo