Mohammad Mokhber
By Our Reporter
Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has been appointed as acting President following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in the East Azerbaijan province.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced the appointment of Mokhber in a condolence message he shared for Raisi’s death in the crash on Monday.
Raisi was earlier confirmed dead in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border.
The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was found in the early hours of Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Pictures from the site showed the aircraft slammed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
State news agency IRNA said Raisi, a hardliner long seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was flying in a U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopter.
