Raisi gained notoriety after he was appointed Deputy prosecutor of Tehran in 1985 before going on to serve on the prosecution committee which sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death.
Iran ian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protégé of the country's supreme leader who helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 earning himself the nickname 'The Butcher of Tehran', has died aged 63.
But he gained notoriety after he was appointed Deputy prosecutor of Tehran in 1985 before going on to serve on the prosecution committee which - under the orders of then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death. Read More Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, 63, is confirmed dead after 'no sign of life' was found at helicopter crash site - as drone footage shows aircraft slammed into mountainside Raisi was one of four members of the commission, which later became known as the 'Death Committee', who were later identified by Amnesty International as having participated in the massacre.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed, but some estimates suggest it was even higher - close to 30,000. Raisi, who earlier lost a presidential election to the relatively moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani in 2017, ended up coming to power in 2021 in a vote carefully managed by Khamenei to clear any major opposition candidates.
He added: 'The policy of `maximum oppression' is still on. We want nothing more than what is rightfully ours.' In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the 'physical violence' that led to Amini's death. It is one of many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fueled by donations or assets seized after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
At Raisi's appointment to the foundation, Khamenei called him a 'trustworthy person with high-profile experience.' He swept nearly 62% of the 28.9 million votes in that vote, the lowest turnout by percentage in the Islamic Republic's history.Born in Mashhad on Dec. 14, 1960, Raisi was born into a family that traces its lineage to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, marked by the black turban he would later wear.
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