The former Minister of Intelligence and Security, Hojatoleslam Ali Younesi, was appointed the Head of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran and later Head of the Politico-Ideological Bureau of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) soon after the 1979 revolution that toppled the Shah. In 1982 Younesi was appointed Religious Judge of the Military Revolutionary Tribunals. He was one of the founders of the MOIS. In 1986 he was appointed representative of the Supreme Leader to oversee the reconstruction of the Intelligence Directorate of the army upon the order of Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1987 he became the Representative of the Acting Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces at the Intelligence Directorate of the army, and was appointed a religious judge.

The summer of 1988 marked a turning-point in Younesi’s rise within the clerical regime’s hierarchy. As one of the religious judges charged with implementing Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa to execute all “non-repentant” political prisoners, Younesi distinguished himself by presiding over one of the most ruthless tribunals, dispatching prisoners to their deaths summarily after trials that barely lasted more than five minutes.

Younesi’s performance in 1988 led to his promotion to one of the top slots in the Iranian regime’s judicial system and he became the head of the Judicial Organisation of the Armed Forces.

When in 1999 another Shiite cleric, Dorri Najafabadi, needed to be replaced as Minister of Intelligence and Security in the wake of the disclosure of MOIS agents’ murder of dozens of intellectuals and dissidents, Younesi was given the job.