ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei threatened the US and Israel with retaliation “proportionate to their crime” on Sunday after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei reappointed the hardline official to another five-year term.

“Criminal America, the killers of all our martyrs, the killers of our martyred Imam(s), we will grab you by the collar, and we will not let go, know this,” Ajei said during a Sunday speech aired by state broadcaster IRIB. 

The remarks came after Khamenei reappointed the longtime hardline judge for a second five-year term. Ejei, who has been implicated in most of Iran’s deadliest crackdowns on opposition groups and protesters, has spent decades in the country’s judicial and security apparatus.

“Now, we who believe in religious teachings and are people of the Quran know that the rulings on ‘corruption on Earth’ and ‘enmity against God’ are clear,” he said, referring to those who wage war against Iran and to charges that are often punishable by death under Sharia law, which underpins the Islamic Republic’s judicial system.

Iran carries out hundreds of executions each year on similar charges against alleged opposition members and protesters inside the country, a practice strongly criticized internationally.

Tehran’s “duty is clear” toward those who wage war against Islam and the Islamic republic, as well as those who start wars illegally, the judiciary chief added.

On February 28, late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, from Mashhad, was killed in a US-Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran. He served as Iran’s highest political and religious authority for nearly 37 years, making him the country’s longest-serving leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Khamenei was a leading opponent of the US and Israel, advancing the Islamic Republic’s ideology by supporting regional proxies against both countries and calling for their elimination.

“The criminals and the war criminals must be punished, must be put on trial, must pay the price for their crime in proportion to their crime,” Ejei said. 

Ejei has been closely associated with most of Iran’s deadliest crackdowns on protesters, including the January unrest, which left thousands dead, and the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, during which hundreds were killed or executed on charges of allegedly acting against the state and God.

He was also Iran’s intelligence minister in 2009, when authorities launched a heavy crackdown on protesters following the country’s disputed presidential election.

Following Iran’s 2009 mass protests, Ejei was accused of being closely associated with forced confessions, crackdowns on protesters, harsh security-related prosecutions and the use of the death penalty in politically sensitive cases, with both the EU and the US sanctioning him over serious human rights abuses.