Mohammad-Ali Rajai (Persian: محمدعلی رجایی; 15 June 1933 – 30 August 1981) was an Iranian politician who served as the second president of Iran from 2 August 1981 until his assassination four weeks later. Before his presidency, Rajai had served as prime minister under Abolhassan Banisadr, while concurrently occupying the position of foreign affairs minister from 11 March 1981 to 15 August 1981. He died in a bombing on 30 August 1981 along with then-prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar.
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Early life and education
Mohammad-Ali Rajai was born on 15 June 1933 in Qazvin, Iran. His father, a shopkeeper named Abdolsamad, died when he was four years old. Rajai grew up in Qazvin and moved to Tehran in the late 1940s. He joined the Air Force at age sixteen or seventeen. In 1959, he graduated from Tarbiat Moallem University with a degree in education, later working as a teacher of mathematics.
Political career
After moving to Tehran, Rajai became involved in the anti-Shah movement and associated with Mahmoud Taleghani and the Fadayeen-e Islam group. A one-time member of the largely anti-clerical People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), Rajai soon came out against its left-leaning ideals and in 1960, joined the Freedom Movement of Iran. He was arrested at least twice by SAVAK for his opposition activities, with his longest detention lasting from May 1974 to late 1978. Later in a 1980 speech to the United Nations Security Council, Rajai displayed his beaten right foot to the audience, attributing its condition to being tortured by the Shah's interrogators in prison.