May 20 (UPI) — President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran died in a helicopter crash, the government confirmed Monday after search-and-rescue teams reached the wreckage of the aircraft and found no surviving passengers.
The government of Iran confirmed said online that Raisi had been “martyred.” A statement on Raisi’s official website says he and the eight other occupants of the helicopter have “ascended to the heavens.”
The announcement came after Pir-Hossein Kolivand, head of the Iranian Red Crescent, said rescue teams had arrived at the site of the wreckage early Monday and found “no trace of survivors.”
The helicopter crashed Sunday in the mountain region of Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province.
Raisi, 63, was returning from a visit to the Iranian border with Azerbaijan, where he inaugurated a dam on the Aras river with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.
Two other helicopters in the president’s convoy had safely landed.
The statement published on the president’s website identified the other eight victims of the crash as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, East Azerbaijan Gov. Malek Rahmati, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashemand, Sardar Seyed Mehdi Mousavi, a member of the Ansar-al-Mahdi Crops, a pilot, co-pilot and a crew chief.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Sunday that intelligence authorities had informed him that at this point there was no evidence to suggest foul play was involved.
“It looks like an accident,” he commented in an unrelated press conference. “It was very bad, foggy weather in northwest Iran where the copter had crashed. So, it looks like an accident, but it’s still being fully investigated.”
Vice President Mohammad Mokhber led an emergency meeting of the Iranian cabinet cabinet, which issued a statement expressing its condolences.
“We assure our loyal, appreciative, and dear nation that the glorious path of service will continue,” it said.
“With the help of Almighty God and the cooperation of the noble people, no disruption will occur in the jihadist management of the country.”
Raisi was a hardline cleric often characterized as a potential replacement for Iran’s 85-year-old spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He is known as the Butcher of Tehran for his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. In November 2019, the United States sanctioned Raisi in part over his participation on the so-called death commission that ordered the executions of mostly members of the opposition People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran.
Raisi’s tenure has been marked by his implementation of oppressive policies and violent crack downs on dissent.
His death also comes as relations between Iran and the United States are at their most fraught in years.
Iran-backed Hamas ignited a war when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Emboldened by the conflict, other Iran proxy militias have been attacking Israel but also the U.S. and British military. In January, three U.S. soldiers in Jordan were killed in a drone strike U.S. officials blamed on Iran-backed militias.
In the wake of Raisi’s death, the presidency is expected to pass to Mokhber with a new president needing to be elected within 50 days.
