Senate Chaplain Offers Prayer for ‘Butcher of Tehran’ Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

Barry Black and Ebrahim Raisi
Anna Moneymaker, YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images
Elizabeth Weibel

Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered a prayer for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after he died in a helicopter crash on Sunday despite being known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in murdering thousands of dissidents.

While leading the opening prayer from the Senate floor, Black prayed for the people of Iran who were mourning “the death of their president.” Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other officials were reported to have been in the helicopter, which went missing in a mountainous region of the country.

Weather conditions were cold and consisted of heavy rain and fog when the helicopter went missing.

“Lord, we pray for the Iranian people who mourn the death of their president,” Black said during a Senate hearing. “We pray in your loving name, Amen.”

Raisi served as the president of Iran since 2021 after low voter turnout. While serving as a prosecutor in 1988, Raisi was part of a “death commission” and is believed to have presided over as many as 5,000 to 30,000 executions of peaceful dissidents.

While serving as president of Iran, Raisi oversaw mass executions and the Iranian regime’s numerous human rights violations.

When questioned about his role in the executions in 1988, Raisi expressed that he was “proud of being a defender of human rights and of people’s security.”

The late Iranian president gave priority to Iran’s relationship with China. Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Ethiopia joined the BRICS coalition in January. BRICS is an intergovernmental coalition named after its five original members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping described Raisi’s death as “tragic” and a “great loss to the Iranian people” and lauded him as a “good friend.”

Search teams located the site of the helicopter crash on Monday morning and revealed that there was “no sign” of life, according to Iranian state television, the Times of Israel reported.

Iran’s state-run media declared that Raisi had died in the helicopter crash “while serving and performing his duty” and added that he had been “martyred.”

The Times of Israel reported that Iran’s Mehr news agency said:

“The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, had an accident while serving and performing his duty for the people of Iran and was martryed,” Iran’s Mehr agency says as other media outlets also reported the news.

People in Iran were asked to pray for Raisi after the news of the helicopter accident.

In the aftermath of the accident, people were seen setting off fireworks and celebrating the news even before Raisi was confirmed dead.

After Raisi’s death was confirmed, the Iranian regime declared a five-day period of mourning.

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