IRANIAN President Ebrahim Raisi has been found dead at the site of a horror helicopter crash as Israel makes clear: “It wasn’t us.”
The brutish president, 63, was among several discovered on Monday following a gruelling overnight search in blizzard conditions.
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Rescuers carry a body after a helicopter carrying Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi crashed in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan provinceCredit: Reuters
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Iran’s president and foreign minister and several other officials died in the crashCredit: Reuters
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Wreckage of the crashed helicopter is pictured in the area of Varzaghan, Tabriz province, southwestern IranCredit: EPA
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Search and rescue personnel survey the site of the helicopter crashCredit: East2West
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A drone captures images of the crash site in East Azerbaijan provinceCredit: SNN
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Footage from Akinci Unmanned Aerial Vehicle shows a heat source thought to be the wreckage of the president’s helicopterCredit: Getty
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The chair where President Raisi sat during government meetings is wrapped with black cloth during an urgent meeting of government on MondayCredit: X/@IrnaEnglish
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was confirmed dead on Monday morningCredit: AP
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is seen on board a helicopter before the crashCredit: AFP
Tyrannical Raisi, dubbed “The Butcher”, was yesterday travelling in a convoy of three helicopters in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province when his own suffered a “hard landing”.
Eerie footage showed Raisi sitting in a helicopter and staring out a window moments before the crash.
The president’s body was located after an hourslong search through the fog in the mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media and officials reported on Monday.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was also found dead in the charred wreckage of the helicopter, said by state news agency IRNA to have been a US-made Bell 212 helicopter.
No immediate cause for the crash was provided by officials, but state TV reported the helicopter had slammed into a mountain peak.
Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, blamed the US for the crash – without providing any evidence for the claims.
And an Israeli official told Reuters: “It wasn’t us,” as Palestinian militant group Hamas expressed sympathy to the Iranian people for “this immense loss”.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group and the Houthi rebels in Yemen issued statements praising Raisi and mourning his death.
Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories.
But tensions in the Middle East have never been higher since Iran, under Raisi’s leadership, last month launched a massive drone and missile attack on Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria which killed two Iranian generals and five officers.
The Iranian Red Crescent said today that the bodies of Raisi and others who died in the crash had been recovered and that search operations had ended.
Helicopter in convoy carrying Iranian President suffers ‘accident’ as rescuers rush to crash site
Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Koolivand told state TV: “We are in the process of transferring the bodies of the martyrs to Tabriz,” adding that “the search operations have come to an end.”
Other victims of the helicopter crash include Ayatollah Mohammad Ali al e Hashem, the imam for Friday prayers in the city of Tabriz, and General Malek Rahmati, the governor of the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, according to the IRNA state news agency.
The commander of the president’s protection unit, Sardar Seyed Mehdi Mousavi, was also killed, along with an unknown number of bodyguards and helicopter crew.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the country would enter five days of mourning for Raisi.
He said on Monday: “I announce five days of public mourning and offer my condolences to the dear people of Iran.”
Khamenei confirmed First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber as interim head of the country’s executive branch and said he had up to 50 days to elect a new president.
Earlier on Monday, a senior Iranian official told Reuters: “President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash.”
Vice President Mohsen Mansouri, who is set to become Iran’s interim president, confirmed Raisi’s death on social media.
Video shared online today showed what appeared to be riot police in Tehran – who some say may be needed to subdue locals’ celebrations of President Raisi’s death.
Who was Ebrahim Raisi?
By Jessica Baker
IRAN’S hardline president Ebrahim Raisi has a bloody history steeped in murder and helped oversee the mass executions of thousands.
The 63-year-old had positioned himself as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – before he died suddenly in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Known by some as The Butcher, Raisi won a landslide victory and was declared Iran’s president in 2021.
The brute is alleged to have been a key member of the so-called “Death Commission” which ordered thousands of political prisoners to be killed in 1988, as Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq came to an end.
His alleged role was said to be pivotal in winning him the support of powerful Iranian theocratic rulers.
The US sanctioned Raisi in 2019 for his “administrative oversight” of the executions of juvenile offenders, and for the torture and “amputations” inflicted on prisoners in Iran – as well as for the 1988 mass executions.
Raisi later led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels, and was in power when Iran launched a massive drone and missile attack on Israel in April.
The president allegedly ordered the torture of pregnant women, had prisoners thrown off cliffs, had people flogged with electric cords, and oversaw countless other brutal acts of violence.
Mass protests swept Iran in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, as was required by authorities.
Following the demonstrations, a monthslong security crackdown saw more than 500 people killed and more than 22,000 others detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the physical violence that led to Amini’s death.
Turkish authorities this morning released “drone footage” showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness, which they suspected to be wreckage of Raisi’s helicopter.
The coordinates listed in the footage indicated the fire was some 12 miles south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border, on the side of a steep green mountain in northwest Iran.
Footage released by the IRNA also showed what the agency described as the crash site.
Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.”
Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text said: “There is no sign of life from people on board.”
Iran’s government has said it will operate “without disruption” after Raisi’s death.
The crashed copter was said to have last been heard from in Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan – 375 miles northwest of Iranian capital Tehran.
Raisi was elected president in 2021 amid controversy, with almost all of his potential opponents banned from running under Iran’s shame vetting system.
The brute received 62 per cent of votes as the country’s only viable candidate – although only 28.9 million votes were cast, which was the lowest turnout by percentage in the history of the state.
Since taking office, Raisi has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a crackdown on anti-government protests, and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.
Butcher by name, butcher by nature
Activists opposed Raisi’s rule, citing concerns over the tyrant’s bloody history steeped in murder and executions.
The president has been accused of ordering the torture of pregnant women and of having prisoners thrown off cliffs.
He is also said to have headed up a “Death Commission” which ordered thousands to be killed in the massacre of 1988.
Some 30,000 men, women and children held in jails across Iran were lined up against a wall and brutally gunned down on Raisi’s orders, according to his rivals.
His regime also enjoyed the stonings and beheadings he ordered.
Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions and Raisi never addressed the allegations about his role in them.
There are still a high number of executions carried out in Iran every year, and Amnesty International has said Raisi should face an investigation for “crimes against humanity”.
Amnesty chief Agnès Callamard said previously: “That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran.”
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Rescuers recover bodies at the site of the helicopter crashCredit: AFP
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The bodies are carried through a fog-shrouded mountainous area of northwest IranCredit: AFP
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Search and rescue personnel inspect the wreckageCredit: East2West
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Footage of the president was released on SundayCredit: AFP
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Rescuers participate in what the Iranian Red Crescent Society says is a search and rescue operation following the helicopter crashCredit: Reuters
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Raisi was last seen with the Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev as they inaugurated a dam projectCredit: AP
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The final picture of the helicopter before it crashed near the Azerbaijani borderCredit: Islamic Republic News Agency
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Rescuers rushed to the scene but struggled due to poor visibilityCredit: STATE TV/UNPIXS
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Search teams battled through torrid weather to try and find the helicopter and the presidentCredit: Unpixs
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People had been protesting against Raisi for some time over his terrifying reigmeCredit: Alamy
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Ebrahim Raisi back in the 1980’s when he was first given the nickname of The ButcherCredit: Alamy
Iran’s executions & torture
IRAN carries out around 250 executions a year – the most of any country in the world aside from China.
Under its Islamic Penal Code, a death sentence can be handed down for crimes such as kidnapping, adultery, drinking alcohol and political crimes as well as murder.
Victims can also have their fingers amputated for counts of petty theft – leaving just the thumb and palm – using a guillotine-like tool.
Children as young as 12 can also be sentenced to death, which is against international law.
And torture is believed to rife in Iran’s prisons, with electric shocks, floggings, water boarding and sexual violence used on prisoners, according to human rights groups.
Stoning to death for adultery also remains on the statute books, though the latest figures show none have been carried out recently.
Electric shocks in prisons see victims strapped into a chair and forced to confess to crimes with the power being turned up if they don’t.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education