Who was Ebrahim Raisi?

Iran's hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi has long been considered a protégé of Iran's supreme leader and a potential successor to his position in the country's Shiite theocracy, the Associated Press agency writes.

Raisi was under sanctions by the US and other countries for his involvement in the 1988 mass executions of prisoners.

The Iranian president (63) previously headed Iran's judiciary. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani, a relatively moderate cleric who brokered Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as president.

Raisi ran again in 2021 in an election in which all of his potential high-profile opponents are barred from running under Iran's vetting system. He won almost 62 percent of the 28,9 million votes cast, which was the lowest percentage turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic. Millions stayed home and others canceled their ballots.

With his victory, all branches of government are put under the control of hardliners. Raisi was defiant when asked at a press conference after his election about the 1988 executions, which involved mock trials of political prisoners, militants and others, in what would become known as "death commissions" at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war. according to AP.

After then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Kalk, armed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border from Iraq. Iran thwarted their attack.

The trials began around this time, and the accused were asked to identify themselves. Those who declared themselves "mujahideen" were sent to their deaths, while others were interrogated about their willingness to "clear minefields for the army of the Islamic Republic," according to a 1990 report by Amnesty International. International human rights groups estimate that 5.000 people were executed. . Raisi was in the commissions that decided.

In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Raisi "for his administrative oversight of the executions of individuals who were minors at the time of the crime, as well as for torture and other "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners in Iran, including amputations." mentions his involvement in the executions of 1988. In Iran's political system, divided between the clerical establishment and the government, Raisi's 85-year-old mentor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, has the final say on all major policies.

However, as president, Raisi supported enriching Iran's uranium near the level needed to produce nuclear weapons, as well as obstructing international inspectors as part of a standoff with the West.

Raisi also supported the attack on Israel in April, when more than 300 drones and missiles were fired into Israeli territory in response to an alleged Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, which killed Iranian generals. It was an escalation of the long-standing shadow war between the two states.

Raisi also supported the country's security structures in dealing with protests, including those that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022. In a months-long crackdown by Iranian security forces, more than 500 people were killed and more than 22.000 were detained. In March, a United Nations investigative panel found Iran responsible for the "physical violence" that led to Amini's death after she was arrested for not wearing a hijab as required by authorities.

The president of Iran was yesterday at the border with Azerbaijan to open the Kiz-Kalasi dam, a joint project with that country. According to Article 131 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic, in the event of the death of the president, the first vice president takes over, with the confirmation of the supreme leader. The council, which consists of the first vice president, the president of the parliament and the head of the judiciary, must organize elections for a new president within a period of no longer than 50 days.