NEWS– Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has died after a helicopter carrying him and other officials crashed in a mountainous and forested area of the country in poor weather.
The 63-year-old, a figure representing conservative and hardline factions in Iranian politics, was President for nearly three years, and appeared on track to run for re-election next year.
President Raisi was a former Chief Justice and touted as a potential successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader of Iran.
President Raisi was born in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a religious hub for Shia Muslims and underwent religious education and was trained at the seminary in Qom, studying under prominent scholars including Khamenei.
Just like the supreme leader Khamenei, Raisi wore a black turban, which signified that he was a Sayyid – a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, a status with particular significance among Twelver Shia Muslims.
According to Human Rights Organisations, President Raisi racked up experience as a prosecutor in multiple jurisdictions before coming to Tehran in 1985 as the capital city that and he was part of a committee of judges who oversaw executions of political prisoners.
The late president was a longtime member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that is tasked with choosing a replacement for the supreme leader in the event of his death.
He became attorney general in 2014 for two years, when he was appointed by Khamenei to lead the Astan Quds Razavi, which is a colossal bonyad, or charitable trust, has billions of dollars in assets and is the custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia imam.
President Raisi initially ran for President in 2017, unsuccessfully challenging the re-election of former President Hassan Rouhani, who represented the centrist and moderate camps.
After a short hiatus, Raisi was making headlines as the new head of the Iranian judiciary system, having been appointed by Khamenei in 2019 and presented himself as a defender of justice and a fighter against corruption, and made many provincial travels to garner popular support.
Additional Reporting from Aljazzera Africa.
