'Butcher of Tehran': Who was Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?

Iran's president has died following a helicopter crash on Sunday, but who was he, and how did he come to lead the Islamic Republic?

Transcript

00:00 Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was 63 years old.

00:06 The crash in which he died comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas

00:11 war, during which Raisi, under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched an unprecedented

00:18 drone and missile attack on Israel last month.

00:21 Under Raisi, Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels following

00:26 the collapse of the international nuclear deal.

00:30 That further escalated tensions with the West, as did Tehran supplying Shahed attack drones

00:36 to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

00:40 Iran also saw mass protests on Raisi's watch against the country's Shiite theocracy, its

00:45 faltering economy and women's rights.

00:49 At home, Raisi will arguably be best remembered by the grim moniker "the butcher of Tehran".

00:54 He was defiant when asked at a news conference after his election as president about the

00:59 1988 mass executions, which saw sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others

01:06 that would become known as "death commissions".

01:10 International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed.

01:17 Raisi's presidency also saw the 2022 arrest of Swedish national Johan Flodaris, who was

01:22 working for the Afghanistan desk of the EU's European External Action Service.

01:28 He is accused of spying for Israel and prosecutors are seeking the death sentence.

01:34 Flodaris is the latest EU citizen to be arbitrarily detained by the Iranian regime on widely contested

01:40 criminal charges known as hostage diplomacy.

01:44 [Music]

01:46 [whoosh]

01:47 (whooshing)