Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian died when their helicopter crashed as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog, Iranian Deputy President for Executive Affairs Mohsen Mansouri announced on Monday.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Malik Rahmeti, the governor of East Azerbaijan Province, and Imam Ayatollah Ali Hashim of Tabriz province were also on board the helicopter.
The Iranian state television announced that there were no survivors from the helicopter crash which was found following detections by the Akıncı UAV.
Rescue teams had been scouring the area since Sunday afternoon after a helicopter carrying Raisi, the foreign minister and other officials had gone missing.
Early Monday, relief workers located the missing helicopter, with state TV saying the president had died.
"The servant of Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi has achieved the highest level of martyrdom whilst serving the people," state television said Monday, with Mehr news agency also saying he was dead.
State television broadcast photos of Raisi, with the voice of a man reciting the Quran playing in the background.
POLITICAL JOURNEY OF LATE IRANIAN PRESIDENT EBRAHIM RAISI
Known as a jurist and religious figure, the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was born on December 14, 1960, in Mashhad. Following the 1979 revolution, he began his career as a prosecutor in 1981.
Rising swiftly in his position, Raisi became Deputy Prosecutor General of Tehran at the young age of 25.
Raisi was part of a 4-member committee that, under the instruction of Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued the death sentences for regime opponents imprisoned in 1988.
After Khomeini's death and during Ali Khamenei's tenure, Raisi rapidly climbed the ranks in state offices. He served as Tehran's prosecutor general from 1989 to 1994.
In 1994, Raisi was appointed as the head of the State Inspectorate Organization, a position he held for 10 years.
In 2004, Raisi was appointed as the first deputy chief of the judiciary. He later became Iran's attorney general in 2014 and was appointed as the head of the Imam Reza Shrine and Foundation in Mashhad by Khamenei in 2016.
Raisi also ran as a candidate in the presidential elections held on May 19, 2017, but lost to the then-incumbent President Hassan Rouhani.
Following the dismissal of Ayatollah Amoli Larijani from the judiciary chief position and his appointment as the head of the Expediency Discernment Council by Khamenei, Raisi assumed the vacant position of judiciary chief in March 2019.
In the presidential elections held on June 18, 2021, Raisi won by a large margin, securing 62% of the votes, thus becoming Iran's 8th president.
Earlier on Monday, President Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and their companions were declared dead after their helicopter crashed in northwestern Iran's East Azerbaijan province on Sunday afternoon.
