Following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, Mohammad Mokhber,68, Iran’s first vice president, is anticipated to take over as interim president in accordance with the country’s constitution. Here are some important details about him.
Along with the speaker of the house of representatives and the head of the judiciary, Mokhber serves as interim president and is a member of a three-person committee that will arrange a new presidential election within 50 days of the deceased president’s passing.
Like Raisi, Mokhber was born on September 1, 1955, and is seen as close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all affairs of state. When Raisi won the presidency in 2021, Mokhber was elected as the first vice president.
According to sources who spoke to Reuters at the time, Mokhber was a member of a group of Iranian officials who traveled to Moscow in October and made an agreement to provide the Russian military with additional drones and surface-to-surface missiles. Two senior Revolutionary Guards of Iran officials and a representative from the Supreme National Security Council were also on the team.
Previously, Mokhber oversaw Setad, an investment fund connected to the supreme commander.
Mokhber was put on a list of people and organizations that the European Union sanctioned in 2010 due to accusations that he had engaged in “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.” It took two years for it to take him off the list.
Setad and the 37 companies it supervised were added to the US Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned organizations in 2013.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the predecessor of Khamenei, issued an edict establishing Setad, whose full name is Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam, or the Headquarters for Executing the edict of the Imam. After the tumultuous years following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, it directed assistants to maintain and sell assets that were allegedly abandoned, allocating the majority of the earnings to charitable causes.
