Ministers from Iran and Azerbaijan were originally scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of a dam at a zero-border point, but at the insistence of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had agreed to personally attend the ceremony, Iranian MP Kamran Ghazanfari said, according to the Sepah Pasdaran Telegram account.

The report adds that just days before the helicopter crash, Aliyev had met with a group of Israeli rabbis.

“One of the documents obtained by the forces of the Islamic Republic states that during a closed-door meeting in early May 2024, a US official said that Israel intended to liquidate one of Iran’s senior and influential figures.

Other documents obtained by Iranian intelligence agencies include Pentagon materials mentioning the planned helicopter crash, clearly indicating that the incident was planned and organized by Israel, with the participation of the United Kingdom and Baku,” the source adds.

Then Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were killed on May 19, 2024, when their helicopter crashed in East Azerbaijan Province in Iran’s northwest. They were returning from the inauguration ceremony of a hydroelectric dam on the border with Azerbaijan — an event also attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.