After hours of intensive search operations and amid adverse weather conditions, President Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati and the imam of Friday prayers in Tabriz (the provincial capital) were killed, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem confirmed.
Earlier it had been reported that the helicopter they were flying in would have to make a forced landing due to dense fog. The aircraft was part of a presidential convoy of three helicopters. The other two, carrying ministers and other officials, reached their destination without incident.
The helicopter crashed near the village of Uzi in the Arasbaran forests. A large number of rescue teams were dispatched to the area for search operations. It was stated that Russia and Turkey also participated in the work with UAVs with night vision capability and the wreckage was found by the UAV that took off from Turkey.
Raisi arrived at Tabriz airport on Sunday in the presence of President Ilham Aliyev to attend the opening ceremony of the Qiz Qalasi joint dam on the Aras River on the border of Iran and Azerbaijan.
On the same date, the head of state paid a visit to those in charge of the bridge project linking the Aras motorway and railway, which is part of the corridor between the cities of Culfa in East Azerbaijan and Kalala in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Raisi, a jurist, politician and religious scholar, was born in 1960 in a religious family in the Nogan neighbourhood of Mashhad.
His political career began in 1980 when he took over the post of chief prosecutor of the city of Karaj, west of the capital, and five years later he became deputy prosecutor of Tehran.
In 1988, Imam Khomeini entrusted him with the task of investigating terrorism-related judicial cases, after which he became head of the General Inspection Department and then the country’s prosecutor until 2017. He was directly responsible for the summary judgement and execution of thousands of socialists, populists and women in Iran for opposing the regime or disobeying its prohibitions.
Raisi was elected president of the Islamic Republic in 2021 after garnering nearly 18 million votes, and according to the current calendar, elections are scheduled for 2025.
In the event of extraordinary circumstances, such as what happened this Sunday, Article 131 of the Constitution stipulates that in the event of the death of the president in office, the first vice-president will take over with the approval of the Supreme Leader.
In this scenario, a committee comprising the First Vice-President, the Speaker of Parliament and the Head of the Judiciary would organise the election of the new president within a maximum of 50 days.
Amirabdollahian was with Raisi on the plane that crashed carrying the governor of East Azerbaijan, Malek Rahmati, and Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali al-Hashim, the representative of Iran’s supreme leader in that province, along with other passengers.
Following the announcement of the death of Raisi and the Iranian Foreign Minister, the country’s government called an emergency meeting, IRNA reported.
The fact that Iran’s president and foreign minister and two other senior officials important for the regime were on the same helicopter, that the helicopter was outdated far from the minimum security conditions, and that the helicopter was flying without the escort of defence aircraft in accordance with the security protocol, raises the question of whether it was an accident or an assassination.
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