Abdolkarim Mousavi-Ardabili

Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi-Ardabili was a senior Shia cleric who served as the second Chief Justice of the Islamic Republic. A longtime supporter of Ruhollah Khomeini, he was selected as a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Council in 1979, was elected to the Assembly of Experts for the Constitution, and was a co-founder of the Islamic Republican Party alongside Mohammad Beheshti, Ali Khamenei, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Following Beheshti's assassination in the Hafte Tir bombing on 28 June 1981, Khomeini appointed Mousavi-Ardabili as head of the Judiciary of Iran, a position he held until 1989. As Chief Justice, he oversaw the revolutionary courts and the judicial apparatus during the Iran-Iraq War. He also served as Tehran's Friday Prayer Imam and was a founding member of the Expediency Discernment Council in 1988.

During the 1988 mass executions, Mousavi-Ardabili was the country's highest judicial authority. He publicly advocated for harsh treatment of MEK prisoners, stating at Friday prayers on 5 August 1988 that the judiciary was 'under strong pressure from public opinion' demanding their execution. As head of the Supreme Judicial Council, he oversaw the establishment and operation of the Death Commissions that carried out the killings. Hossein-Ali Montazeri, then Khomeini's designated successor, wrote letters criticizing Mousavi-Ardabili's role in pressuring authorities to carry out the executions. He was considered a candidate for Supreme Leader in 1989 but Ali Khamenei was selected instead. He participated in the Iranian Revolution as a pro-Khomeini activist. In later years, he distanced himself from hardline positions and expressed support for the Green Movement protests in 2009. He died on 23 November 2016 in Tehran.