Despite US sanctions against him, Iran’s ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi intends to visit New York City for the UN General Assembly next month, the government’s spokesman announced on Tuesday.
Ali Bahadori-Jahromi stated at a weekly press briefing that “the preliminary planning has been done for the president’s attendance at the UN General Assembly session.”
Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, Raisi, who has been subject to US sanctions since November 2019 for “complicity in significant human rights crimes,” was unable to attend the General Assembly in 2018. Instead, a pre-recorded video of his speech was shown to the group.
Raisi was still in charge of the judiciary when Washington put his name to its blacklist of Iranian officials. In June 2021, he was elected president.
While serving as the Tehran Revolutionary Court’s head prosecutor in 1988, Washington accuses him of being a key player in the mass executions of jailed communists.
Raisi has refuted the accusations twice, in 2018 and 2020, maintaining that he had no part in the executions, even though he praised Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, for issuing the order to carry out the purge.
On September 13, the General Assembly convenes in New York.
