ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran’s Supreme Leader has appointed a new judiciary chief, selecting a candidate slammed by rights group for his record on extrajudicial executions.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a decree on Thursday appointing Ebrahim Raisi as chief of the judiciary, saying Raisi has his confidence to lead Iran’s judiciary into a “powerful new era.”
Khamenei said he chose Raisi because of his many years of experience at various levels.
Responding to the news, the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said Raisi “should be tried for crimes against humanity” because of his role in sending “thousands of political prisoners” to their deaths instead of being promoted.
It's official. Ebrahim Raisi is the new chief justice of #Iran's judiciary. Before that, he served on a "death commission" that sent THOUSANDS of political prisoners to be executed en masse https://t.co/00dBPfLQiR. Raisi should be tried for crimes against humanity. pic.twitter.com/hnJmOsSFSf
— IranHumanRights.org (@ICHRI) March 7, 2019
According to CHRI, Raisi participated in “death commissions” established after the end of the Iran-Iraq war to “crush opposition to the state.”
Between July and September 1988, members of opposition groups like the Kurdish PDKI (Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan) and Komala, Mujahidin-e-Khalq (MEK), and leftist parties were targeted and at least 5,000 people were killed.
Victims’ families still do not know the truth of what happened to their loved ones.
According to Amnesty International, several perpetrators of the mass executions were elevated to senior positions, including Minister of Justice Alireza Avaei, head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court for Judges Hossein Ali Nayyeri, and member of the powerful Assembly of Experts Mohammad Hossein Ahmadi.
Raisi was deputy prosecutor general of Tehran at the time.
“The selection of Raisi to serve as head of the judiciary will send a clear message: the rule of law has no meaning in Iran, and those who participated in mass murder will be rewarded,” said CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi in February when rumours were circulating that Raisi was the preferred candidate.