Uncertainty still reigns in Iran this Sunday, May 19, several hours after the announcement of the “accident” of a helicopter in which President Ebrahim Raïssi was, according to officials and official media. The plane carrying him and his foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the provincial governor and the region’s main imam, was reportedly forced into a “hard landing” in the mountainous and rural Jofa region. , near the border between Iran and Azerbaijan, state television said.
The two other aircraft in the convoy carrying the presidential delegation landed without incident in Tabriz, the large city in the northwest, from where Ebrahim Raïssi was to reach Tehran. The fate of the president, which has not yet been commented on by the regime, is unknown. “We still hope, but the information coming to us from the location of the cash is very worrying,” an Iranian official told the Reuters news agency, on condition of anonymity, two hours after the accident. According to him, the leader’s life is indeed “in danger”.
More than twenty rescue teams were mobilized to find them, including funny people and rescue dogs. But the searches are made very difficult by bad weather conditions, and in particular fog, according to the words of the Minister of the Interior on state television.
Face of repression in Iran
In power since 2021, Ebrahim Raïssi has built his career on a policy of brutal purges of opponents of power, including civilians. In 40 years, he has become the face of a repression of great violence, in this country shaken by popular demonstrations – repressed in blood – since the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd who died after being detained by the morality police in September 2022 for not wearing appropriate attire.
Born in November 1960 in the holy Shiite city of Mashhad, this ultraconservative ayatollah first rose through all the ranks of the Iranian judicial system, notably becoming prosecutor general of Tehran then attorney general of the country. In August 2021, he was finally elected president of the Islamic Republic in the first round of a vote marked by a record abstention for a presidential election and the absence of strong competitors. Since then, he has led a retrograde policy based on religious extremism, the annihilation of freedom of expression and women’s rights. Always wearing his black turban and wearing a long religious cloak, he succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, who could no longer run again after two consecutive terms.
Potential successor to Supreme Leader Khamenei
He owes his rise largely to Ayatollah Khamenei, current Supreme Guide of the Revolution and therefore true head of the Iranian state, who was also born in the same city as him. At 63, Ebrahim Raïssi is one of Khamenei’s potential successors, while the Guide of the Revolution is said to be suffering from prostate cancer at 83.
Before his accident, the Iranian president visited the province of Eastern Azerbaijan this Sunday, where he notably inaugurated a dam in the company of President Ilham Aliev, on the border between the two countries.
During a joint press conference, he once again gave his support to the Palestinians in the war in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel. “We believe that Palestine is the first issue of the Muslim world, and we are convinced that the people of Iran and Azerbaijan always support the people of Palestine and Gaza and hate the Zionist regime,” he said.