Mr Raisi reportedly served on a panel involved in sentencing the prisoners to death. Mr Raisi has never publicly acknowledged his role in the executions, even while campaigning for the presidency in 2017. In 2016, Khamenei appointed Mr Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran. These foundations offer no public accounting of their spending and answer only to Iran’s supreme leader. Expand Close Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) / FacebookTwitterEmailWhatsapp Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP)Other candidates who registered Saturday include Ali Larijani, a prominent conservative voice and former parliament speaker who later allied himself with Mr Rouhani.

Source: Irish Independent May 15, 2021 08:32 UTC