Who is Ebrahim Raisi, whose helicopter crashed in western Iran?

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crashed in an area near the Azerbaijan-Iran border amid inclement weather conditions and poor visibility, according to Tehran and its official media.

Hours before the crash, Raisi visited Azerbaijan for the inauguration of a joint dam project on the Aras river, marking a sign of improvement in relations between the neighbouring countries.

According to Iranian media, Raisi was accompanied by his foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, and other top officials.

“Nothing is official yet. But the anxiety is growing (over the fate of the president),” says Fatima Karimkhan, a Tehran-based Iranian journalist, referring to the president's helicopter crash in a mountainous area in the country’s East Azerbaijan province. She says unlike what some news outlets are still reporting, the helicopter didn’t experience a ‘hard landing’ but a crash. “There is no sign of the helicopter. It is a bad sign,” she tells TRT World.

Karimkhan does not think of involvement of sabotage behind Raisi’s helicopter crash despite the fact that “some Israeli-linked unofficial channels are broadcasting that idea.”

While both officials and ordinary Iranians are anxiously following the news, rescuers are searching where the helicopter is despite heavy fog and cold weather, "experiencing difficult and complicated conditions," according to Ali Bahadori Jahromi, a government spokesman.

“There is 'no' new news until now in relation to the accident site and the weather conditions,” he wrote on X.

Who is Raisi?

The 64-year-old Iranian president has been known for his hardliner views, and he ran against Iranian moderates and reformists as a conservative candidate in past elections.

In 2017, he was the candidate of the Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces, a conservative bloc, against Hassan Rouhani, then-incumbent reformist president.

While he lost against Rouhani in 2017, he won the presidential election in 2021 after the country’s Guardian Council, an institution that decides which of the candidates can stand for election, struck down the candidacy of 32 reformist and moderate leaders prior to the election.

Many analysts viewed the high-profile council’s decision as paving the way for Raisi’s election victory. Raisi, who previously held high-profile posts, including as the Chief Justice of Iran, the head of the Islamic Republic's judicial system, is considered an ally of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Analysts have also seen him as a potential successor to the aged supreme leader. Since his early years, Raisi has received a strong religious education being a student of the Qom seminary, Shia-majority Iran’s largest religious academy.

Dealing with wars

Under his presidency, Raisi faced increasing tensions from the Ukraine war, in which Tehran has tacitly backed Russia, selling Iranian drones to Moscow, to the ongoing Gaza conflict, during which Israel has accused its archenemy of training Hamas fighters and arming them. Raisi also oversaw Iran’s drone and missile attacks on Israel last month.

Under Raisi, Iran has continued to enrich uranium, increasing Western and Israeli criticism as tensions between Tehran and Washington rose.

The US sanctioned Raisi for his participation in a controversial 1988 judicial commission as a prosecutor. As a result, he was the first Iranian president to be sanctioned by the US.

According to a United Nations report, he was also cited for his role in Iran’s judiciary, which approved the execution of at least nine children between 2018 and 2019.

The Raisi government has also been heavily criticised for its handling of Mahsa Amini’s controversial detention, which led to her death, triggering large-scale protests throughout the country in late 2022.

“His record cannot be defended,” says Karimkhan.