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Iran Top-Executioner, Ebrahim Raisi, wins the Iranian election: What you need to know
Iran’s hardline judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, won the country’s presidential election in a landslide victory Saturday, propelling the supreme leader’s protégé into Tehran’s highest civilian position in a vote that appeared to see the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.
Raisi dominated the election only after a panel under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualified his strongest competition.
Raisi’s name is tied to Iran’s mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, when he was allegedly a leading member of what came to be known as the “death committee,” a group of Iranian judiciary and intelligence officials put together by then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini to oversee the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners at the time.
Raisi will be the first serving Iranian president sanctioned by the US government even before entering office, over his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary — one of the world’s top executioners.
Rights group Amnesty International said on Saturday Raisi must be investigated for crimes against humanity. “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,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement.