Lior Hayat, spokesperson of the Israeli foreign ministry, tweeted: “The decision of the European Union to send a senior representative to the swearing-in ceremony of the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ is puzzling and shows poor judgment.”

Israel has criticized the European Union decision to send a high-level representative to attend the swearing-in of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday.

Lior Hayat, spokesperson of the Israeli foreign ministry, tweeted: “The decision of the European Union to send a senior representative to the swearing-in ceremony of the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ is puzzling and shows poor judgment.”

The senior representative is Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary General of the EU’s External Service, who coordinated the Vienna nuclear talks with Iran.

Hayat said that Mora would be attending the ceremony just a “few days after Iran killed two civilians,” in “an act of state terrorism against civilian shipping,” in a reference to a drone attack last week on Israeli-managed ship Mercer Street off the coast of Oman, in which one British and one Romanian citizen were killed.

Iran has denied responsibility for the attack, although the United States and the United Kingdom both blamed Tehran.

According to Hayat, Raisi “has the blood of thousands of Iranian citizens on his hands,” and the presence of an EU representative will lend legitimacy to his presidency. He  called on the EU to cancel Mora’s participation in the event.

Raisi, a former judge, played a key role in the execution of thousands of Iranian dissidents, which earned him US sanctions for human rights violations.

Mora’s visit to Tehran is meant in part to break the impasse and revive the nuclear talks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Some of the European parties to the 2015 Iran deal – the UK, France and Germany, known as the E3 – objected to sending Mora to the inauguration, but none of the non-E3 European Union member states opposed it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a reaction to the attack against the ship that “Iran should face up to the consequences of what they’ve done.”

“This was clearly an unacceptable and outrageous attack on commercial shipping. A UK national died. It is absolutely vital that Iran and every other country, respects the freedoms of navigation around the world and the UK will continue to insist on that,” Johnson added.

The US, UK and Romania have said they are coordinating a response to the Iranian attack.