Who is Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president whose helicopter suffered a ‘hard landing’ in foggy weather?

Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of the supreme leader, faces scrutiny over past executions and human rights abuses.

Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has long been seen as a protégé to Iran's supreme leader and a potential successor for his position within the country's Shia theocracy.

News of his helicopter making what state media described as a “hard landing” on May 19 immediately brought new attention to the leader, who already faces sanctions from the U.S. and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.

Mr. Raisi, 63, previously ran Iran's judiciary. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2017 against Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

In 2021, Mr. Raisi ran again in an election that saw all of his potentially prominent opponents barred for running under Iran's vetting system. He swept nearly 62% of the 28.9 million votes, the lowest turnout by percentage in the Islamic Republic’s history. Millions stayed home and others voided ballots.

Mr. Raisi was defiant when asked at a news conference after his election about the 1988 executions, which saw sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions” at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

After Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border from Iraq in a surprise attack. Iran blunted their assault.

The trials began around that time, with defendants asked to identify themselves. Those who responded “mujahedeen” were sent to their deaths, while others were questioned about their willingness to “clear minefields for the army of the Islamic Republic,” according to a 1990 Amnesty International report. International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Raisi served on the commissions.