The person often referred to as the 'Butcher of Tehran' was Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s former president. A hardline religious cleric, Raisi was elected president in 2021 and became the eighth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. His presidency came to a sudden end when he died in a helicopter crash on May 19, 2024, near the Iran–Azerbaijan border. He was 63.
Born on 14 December 1960 in Mashhad, Iran, Raisi entered religious studies as a teenager, training in the seminaries of Qom, the heart of Shi’a scholarship. In the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the new regime was seeking loyal foot-soldiers to consolidate power, he chose the judiciary.
Raisi’s early career was in the prosecutor’s office, serving in provincial capitals such as Karaj and Hamadan before taking on senior prosecutorial roles in Tehran, Iran’s political and judicial hub. Over decades, he advanced through the judicial hierarchy from Deputy Chief Justice, Attorney General, and ultimately Chief Justice in 2019.
He also served on Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body charged with selecting the Supreme Leader and was custodian of the wealthy religious foundation Astan Quds Razavi, consolidating influence within the conservative elite.
The defining and most contentious chapter of Raisi’s career stretches back to 1988, when as deputy prosecutor of Tehran, he was appointed to a panel which was later dubbed a 'death commission' who was tasked with interrogating and deciding the fate of thousands of political prisoners near the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
In July 1988, Iran accepted a United Nations–brokered ceasefire, bringing an end to the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Shortly afterward, then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini reportedly issued a secret fatwa ordering the execution of political prisoners who were already serving sentences. According to accounts cited by research institutions and human rights groups, those targeted were brought before special four-member panels infamously called the Death Commissions.
These commissions, established across the Islamic Republic, included a religious judge, a prosecutor and representatives from the intelligence ministry. Interrogations reportedly lasted only a few minutes. On the basis of a quick interrogation, it was decided whether they will be sent back to their cells or executed.
Raisi was just 27 when he was appointed deputy prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran- the youngest member of the four-person panel. Human rights organisations have documented that thousands of prisoners were executed following these summary proceedings. While official estimates vary widely, from several thousand to much higher figures cited by activists, critics argue that the trials lacked due process and amounted to extrajudicial executions. It is Raisi’s role on this Tehran commission and his later defense of the decisions taken that earned him the label: the Butcher of Tehran.
Because of his role in this process, international media, activists and human rights observers began referring to him as the Butcher of Tehran, a label tied to accusations that the mass executions constituted crimes against humanity, something that Iranian authorities deny.
In the 2021 presidential election, Raisi who was a Khamenei loyalist won amid a vote marked by low turnout and the disqualification of many other rivals. He positioned himself as a defender of the revolution and promising to stand against foreign pressure. His presidency coincided with some of the nation’s most turbulent years in recent memory. The death of Mahsa Amini in morality-police custody in 2022 sparked nationwide protests the state’s response drew widespread criticism. It was also under Raisi's term that Iran deepened ties with countries like China and Russia.
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