Sayyid Ebrahim Raisolsadati

Sayyid Ebrahim Raisolsadati was born in Mashhad, Iran. He entered the Qom Seminary at age fifteen and aligned himself with the revolutionary Islamic movement led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Raisi entered the judiciary, serving as prosecutor general of Karaj and Hamadan before becoming deputy prosecutor of Tehran.

Raisi rose through the ranks of Iran's clerical establishment, serving as attorney general, custodian of the holy Astan Quds Razavi shrine in Mashhad, and Chief Justice of Iran from 2019 to 2021. He won the 2021 Iranian presidential election, pursuing hardline foreign policies, strengthening ties with Russia and China, expanding the country's nuclear enrichment program, and presiding over domestic crackdowns on social protests. On May 19, 2024, while returning from the inauguration of the Qiz Qalasi Dam on the border with Azerbaijan, his Bell 212 helicopter crashed in dense fog in the mountains of Varzaqan, killing Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six others.