Iranian president calls for Trump to face ‘fair tribunal’ for Soleimani killing

Mr Raisi says Mr Trump should face a ‘fair tribunal’ for his ordering of the 2020 drone strike which killed General Qasem Soleimani

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly while holding a photo of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020 (AFP via Getty Images)

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday slammed former president Donald Trump’s authorisation of the January 2020 drone strike which killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani as a crime for which the ex-president must face justice.

Speaking at the 2022 United Nations General Assembly in New York, Mr Raisi described the late military leader as a “freedom seeking man who became a martyr” at Mr Trump’s hands.

Though he avoided using the twice-impeached ex-president’s name, the Iranian leader said the “previous president of the United States of America” had “effectively managed to sign the document” of what he described as a “savage crime, and illegal crime and immoral crime.”

“The proper pursuit of justice in the face of a crime that the American president admitted to have put his signature on will not be abandoned. We will pursue through a fair tribunal, to bring to justice those who martyred our beloved general Qassem Soleimani,” Mr Raisi added.

In remarks delivered the morning after the strike against Soleimani, Mr Trump said the Iranian general had been “caught in the act and terminated” while “plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel” in Iraq. He also blamed him for the deaths of American servicemen from rocket attacks in Baghdad.

Iranian forces later responded with ballistic missile attacks against US positions in the region that did not kill any US soldiers.

A series of tit-for-tat attacks and threats would continue for five days after the death Soleimani until Mr Trump backed off threats to escalate, citing Iran’s apparent “standing down” following the missile strikes.