Mohammad Reyshahri

Mohammad Reyshahri was Iran's first dedicated Minister of Intelligence, serving under Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and President Ali Khamenei from 1984 to 1989. He established the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) as an institutional entity and presided over it during the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners — the bloodiest period of internal repression in the Islamic Republic's history. He later headed the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organisation. He ran for president in 1997 but received less than 0.5% of the vote. He is regarded as a founding architect of Iran's security state.