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Iran Pres., FM Die in Helicopter Crash 05/20 06:10
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protege of the country's
supreme leader who helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 and
later led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels,
launched a major attack on Israel and experienced mass protests, has died. He
was 63.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a
hard-line protege of the country's supreme leader who helped oversee the mass
executions of thousands in 1988 and later led the country as it enriched
uranium near weapons-grade levels, launched a major attack on Israel and
experienced mass protests, has died. He was 63.
Raisi's death, along with the foreign minister and other officials in a
helicopter crash Sunday in northwestern Iran, came as Iran struggles with
internal dissent and its relations with the wider world. A cleric first, Raisi
once kissed the Quran, the Islamic holy book, before the United Nations and
spoke more like a preacher than a statesman when addressing the world.
Raisi, who lost a presidential election to the relatively moderate incumbent
Hassan Rouhani in 2017, came to power four years later in a vote carefully
managed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to clear any major opposition
candidate.
His election came at a time when relations between Tehran and Washington
were particularly tense following U.S. President Donald Trump's 2018 decision
to unilaterally withdraw America from a nuclear deal aimed at limiting Iran's
uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.
While Raisi said he wanted to rejoin the deal with world powers, his new
administration instead pushed back against international inspections of nuclear
facilities, in part over an alleged sabotage campaign that Tehran blamed on
Israel. Talks to restore the accord remained stalled in his government's first
months.
"Sanctions are the U.S.' new way of war with the nations of the world,"
Raisi told the United Nations in September 2021. "The policy of 'maximum
oppression' is still on. We want nothing more than what is rightfully ours."
Mass protests swept the country in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a
woman who had been detained over her allegedly loose headscarf, or hijab. The
monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than
500 people and more than 22,000 others were detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was
responsible for the "physical violence" that led to Amini's death.
Then came the current Israel-Hamas war, in which Iran-backed militants
targeted Israel. Tehran launched an extraordinary attack itself on Israel in
April that used hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
Israel, the U.S. and its allies shot down the incoming fire, but it showed just
how intense the yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel was.
Born in Mashhad on Dec. 14, 1960, Raisi was born into a family that traces
its lineage to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, as signaled by the black turban he
would later wear. His father died when he was 5. He went on to the seminary in
the Shiite holy city of Qom and later described himself as an ayatollah, a
high-ranking Shiite cleric.
In 1988, at the end of Iran's long war with Iraq, Raisi served on what would
become known as "death commissions," which handed down death sentences for
political prisoners, militants and others. International rights groups estimate
that as many as 5,000 people were executed.
After Iran's then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a U.N.-brokered
cease-fire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily
armed by Iraq's Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise
attack. Iran ultimately blunted their assault, but the attack set the stage for
the sham retrials.
Some who appeared were asked to identify themselves. Those who responded
"mujahedeen" were sent to their deaths.
Raisi was defiant when asked at a news conference after his election about
the executions.
"I am proud of being a defender of human rights and of people's security and
comfort as a prosecutor wherever I was," said Raisi, who also served as Iran's
attorney general for a time.
In 2016, Khamenei appointed Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation,
which manages a conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran. It is one of
many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fueled by donations or assets seized
after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
These foundations offer no public accounting of their spending and answer
only to Iran's supreme leader. The Imam Reza charity, known as "Astan-e Quds-e
Razavi" in Farsi, is believed to be one of the biggest. Analysts estimate its
worth at tens of billions of dollars as it owns almost half the land in
Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city.
At Raisi's appointment to the foundation, Khamenei called him a "trustworthy
person with high-profile experience." That led to analyst speculation that
Khamenei could be grooming Raisi as a possible candidate to be Iran's
third-ever supreme leader, a Shiite cleric who has final say on all state
matters and serves as the country's commander-in-chief.
Though Raisi lost his 2017 campaign, he still garnered nearly 16 million
votes. Khamenei installed him as the head of Iran's internationally criticized
judiciary, long known for its closed-door trials of human rights activists and
those with Western ties. The U.S. Treasury in 2019 sanctioned Raisi "for his
administrative oversight over the executions of individuals who were juveniles
at the time of their crime and the torture and other cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners in Iran, including amputations."
By 2021, Raisi became the dominant figure in the election after a panel
under Khamenei disqualified candidates who posed the greatest challenge to his
protege. He swept nearly 62% of the 28.9 million votes in that election.
Millions stayed home and others voided ballots, resulting in the lowest turnout
by percentage in the Islamic Republic's history.
Raisi is survived by his wife and two daughters.
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