IRANIAN President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed after his helicopter crashed in poor weather in mountains near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media said on Monday.
The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and six other passengers and crew, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.
Turkish Transport Minister, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said on Monday that the crashed did not have its signal system turned on or did not possess such a system.
Uraloglu told reporters that since Iran fell within Turkey’s area of responsibility for emergency response, authorities had checked for a signal from the helicopter after hearing it had crashed.
ALSO READ:
National Minimum Wage: Matters Arising From Current Negotiations; By Prince Peters A. Adeyemi
Change Must Begin With The Leader; By Hassan Gimba
“But unfortunately, (we think) most likely the signal system was turned off or that the helicopter did not have that signal system,” he said.
Supreme Leader Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme, said First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, would take over as interim president, the official IRNA news agency reported.
“I announce five days of public mourning and offer my condolences to the dear people of Iran,” Khamenei said in a statement.
Mokhber, like Raisi, is seen as close to Khamenei.
Under the Islamic Republic’s constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days.
Footage from Iranian state television showed wreckage scattered on a foggy hillside, while separate images from IRNA showed Red Crescent workers carrying a covered body on a stretcher.
All those aboard the helicopter were killed, a senior Iranian official had earlier told Reuters.
The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises.
Who was Ebrahim Raisi?
- Ebrahim Raisi rose through Iran’s theocracy from hardline prosecutor to uncompromising president.
- He was elected president in a closely controlled vote in 2021.
- Raisi took a tough stance in nuclear talks with world powers, seeing a chance to win broad relief from U.S. sanctions in return for only modest curbs on Iran’s increasingly advanced technology.
- His hardline position was also evident in domestic politics and a year after his election, the mid-ranking cleric ordered tighter enforcement of Iran’s “hijab and chastity law” restricting women’s dress and behaviour.
- Within weeks, a young Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being arrested by morality police for allegedly violating that law. The resulting months of nationwide protests presented one of the gravest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
- As a young prosecutor in Tehran, Raisi sat on a panel that oversaw the execution of hundreds of political prisoners in the capital in 1988, as Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq was coming to an end, rights groups say.
- He rose through the ranks of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim clergy and was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019.
- Raisi shared with Khamenei a deep suspicion of the West.
- An anti-corruption populist, he backed Khamenei’s self-sufficiency drive in the economy and his strategy of supporting proxy forces across the Middle East.
