Rights groups say that as a young prosecutor in Tehran, Ibrahim Raisi sat on a “death committee” overseeing the execution of hundreds of political prisoners in the Iranian capital.
Now three decades later president, and seen by many as Iran’s potential next supreme leader, Raisi is presiding over an uncoordinated response to domestic and international challenges that has seen Iranian courts hand down dozens of death sentences.
Four people have been hanged after being convicted on charges related to popular unrest that erupted in September over the death in police custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. On Saturday, Iranian media said former Defense Ministry aide Alireza Akbari had been executed for espionage.
The execution drew condemnation from Europe and the United States, but Raisi insisted that the “identification, trial and punishment” of all those the authorities believe were involved in the violence would continue.
“The purpose of the punishments is to create a republic of fear, in which people do not dare to protest and the authorities do not dare to blame,” said Ali Vaiz, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group think-tank.
UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said this week that Akbari, who had acquired British nationality and was living abroad, had been “lured in” and arrested three years ago.
Raisi is overseeing a crackdown on the unrest, which campaigners say has killed more than 500 protesters and dozens of security force personnel, echoing his role in a 1988 purge of political prisoners.
Then, in the weeks following the July ceasefire that ended an eight-year war with Iraq, Iranian authorities organized secret mass executions of thousands of imprisoned dissidents and opponents of the Islamic Republic.
Religious judges, prosecutors and intelligence ministry officials across Iran, known as “death committees”, were set up to decide the fate of thousands of detainees in arbitrary trials, according to a report by Amnesty International. Which only lasted for a few minutes.
While the number of people killed across the country has never been confirmed, Amnesty said the lowest estimate puts it at 5,000.
According to Amnesty, Raisi, the then deputy prosecutor general of Tehran, was a member of the capital’s death committee.
A report published last year by Human Rights Watch quoted a prisoner as saying that he had seen Raisi in a prison outside Tehran and that Raisi would visit the execution site to make sure the process was done correctly.
When asked in 2021 about allegations of involvement in the killings, Raisi said: “If a judge, a prosecutor, has defended the safety of the people, that should be commended… I am proud that I have handled every situation.” I have defended human rights.” Held.”
The President’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this article.
Iranian officials acknowledged the executions but downplayed the scale. In February 1989, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that “less than 1,000 were executed”. In 2016, another member of the Tehran “death committee” said, “We are proud to have fulfilled God’s order,” reported state media.
Said Golgar of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga said, “Raci has been brought up as president for a few reasons, including his ruthlessness, loyalty, and lack of conscience. He showed these characteristics in 1988.”
“He is completely at odds with political repression.”