The president was both a revered and a controversial figure in Iran – while his administration was tarnished by a series of mass protests, he was seen as a frontrunner to succeed the supreme leader.
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday – and Ebrahim Raisi’s death has been confirmed.
But who was Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faced sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988?
The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.
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Mr Raisi was a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.
Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.
The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.