Ebrahim Raisi Death News: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday was confirmed dead after his helicopter crashed on Sunday. According to a report by Reuters, quoting Iran state media and officials, all the nine people onboard the ill-fated chopper have been declared dead. The passengers who were killed in the helicopter crash included Ebrahim Raisi, his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, East Azarbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati, East Azarbaijan Imam of Friday Prayer Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem and others. Raisi, long seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was heading to the city of Tabriz, in the north-west of Iran, after returning from an Iran-Azerbaijan border area when the chopper ran into heavy fog and crashed on a mountaintop near Azerbaijan border.

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The charred wreckage of the helicopter was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions. "President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash," a senior Iranian official said as quoted by Reuters. Raisi's death was confirmed in a statement on social media by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri and on state television. State news agency IRNA on its social media stated, "Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and a group of officials accompanying them were martyred in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran."

Visuals from the crash site showed the aircraft slammed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash. Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter. The video showed a rescue team, wearing bright jackets and head torches, huddled around a GPS device as they searched a pitch-black mountainside on foot in a blizzard. "With the discovery of the crash site, no signs of life have been detected among the helicopter's passengers," the head of Iran Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand said.

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Who Was Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?

- For most of his career, Ebrahim Raisi has been a prosecutor. Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, appointed Raisi as chief judge in 2019.

- After winning the presidency in 2021, Raisi, 63, has tightened moral rules, brutally suppressed anti-government demonstrations, and pressed hard for nuclear discussions with international powers.

- In Iran's dual political system, split between the clerical establishment and the government, it is Raisi's 85-year-old mentor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, who has the final say on all major policies. 

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-  Raisi's victory in a closely managed election in 2021 brought all branches of power under the control of hardliners, after eight years when the presidency had been held by pragmatist Hassan Rouhani and a nuclear deal negotiated with Washington. 

- However, the massive demonstrations against clerical authority and Raisi's inability to revive Iran's economy due to Western sanctions may have damaged his reputation. 

- Raisi had been at the border with Azerbaijan on Sunday to inaugurate the joint Qiz-Qalaisi Dam. Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, who had met Raisi during the ceremony, offered help with the rescue.

 

(With inputs from agency)


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