A stunning confession by a former senior official in the Iranian regime has confirmed what the Iranian Resistance has exposed for years: the clerical regime deliberately allowed the COVID-19 pandemic to kill a staggering number of its citizens as part of a criminal strategy to prevent popular uprisings. This was not a public health failure; it was a state-sanctioned crime against humanity, orchestrated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, that resulted in the deaths of over one million people.
On September 20, 2025, Mohsen Mansouri, who served as Executive Vice President in Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, admitted that the death toll from COVID-19 had already reached nearly 700,000 by the end of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency in August 2021. This figure is more than seven and a half times the regime’s official tally of 91,785 fatalities announced at the time.
Based on this new admission, the Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) now assesses that the total, real death toll by the end of the pandemic exceeded one million people, proving the regime’s cover-up was even more extensive than previously imagined.
Khamenei’s doctrine: a ‘blessing’ to repress dissent
The groundwork for this tragedy was laid by the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself. On March 3, 2020, as the virus ravaged the country, he shamelessly described the pandemic as a “blessing” and an “opportunity.” As the Iranian Resistance warned in April 2020, Khamenei and his regime were pursuing a strategy of mass casualties, effectively “sending people to the minefields of corona” to use the mounting death toll as a human shield against the threat of another nationwide uprising like the one in November 2019.
The regime’s own insiders later admitted this was the case. In a moment of candor during factional infighting, former official Abbas Abdi acknowledged on November 28, 2022, that the major protests that year had been delayed for three years specifically “because of corona.” The pandemic was the regime’s tool for maintaining control.
The murder weapon: banning vaccines while profiting from death
Khamenei’s strategy went beyond passive negligence; it involved deliberate actions that guaranteed a higher death toll. On January 8, 2021, he issued a fatwa banning the import of proven American and British vaccines, directly sentencing hundreds of thousands of Iranians to death.
This criminal decision served two purposes: it ensured the pandemic would continue to suppress dissent, and it created a captive market for corrupt, regime-controlled entities. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other cronies reaped enormous profits from the suffering. The IRGC-linked “Barakat” foundation charged the government 2 million rials per dose for its ineffective domestic vaccine, securing a deal worth over one billion dollars from state funds.
Simultaneously, the regime spent 10 trillion rials on useless Chinese drugs, fully aware they were ineffective. A state-run newspaper, Javan, even admitted on September 2, 2021: “We have patients who are not supposed to die but die after receiving these drugs.”
A vindicated resistance and the call for justice
While the regime was burying its victims under a mountain of lies, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) network inside Iran was working tirelessly to expose the truth. In over 730 daily statements, the NCRI meticulously documented the real scope of the disaster, cautiously estimating the death toll at over 530,000 by April 2022. It is now clear this figure, dismissed by the regime at the time, was not only accurate but tragically conservative.
The recent confession is a complete vindication of the Resistance’s unwavering efforts to reveal the regime’s crimes. As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the NCRI, stated, “Khamenei’s betrayal and great crime have been exposed. By banning vaccine imports and exploiting COVID-19 as an opportunity to block uprisings in Iran, he committed a grave crime against humanity and must be brought to justice.”
The international community can no longer ignore this mountain of evidence. Khamenei and the entire leadership of the Iranian regime must be held accountable in an international tribunal for this deliberate massacre, alongside their other crimes against humanity, from the 1988 massacre of political prisoners to the brutal killings of protesters in successive uprisings.