Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers at a ceremony in memory of late President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, who died in a helicopter crash.
“Oh, Allah, we have seen nothing but good in him,” Khamenei said on Wednesday, paying tribute to Raisi at Tehran University before crowds of tens of thousands, who walked from Enghelab (Revolution) Square to Azadi (Freedom). Square.
Minutes ago, Imam Khamenei led the funeral prayer over the bodies of President Ebrahim Raisi and his esteemed companions pic.twitter.com/eSFemTDsne
– Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) May 22, 2024
The coffins of Raisi, who was 63, and the seven others who died in Sunday’s crash, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, were draped in Iranian flags with their photos.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Freedom Square, said there was tight security in the area.
“The streets are completely closed to traffic, [with] heavy security measures here, multiple security checkpoints, and you can see thousands and thousands of people already entering this area.”
Guests at the memorial event included Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, the vice president and foreign minister of Turkey, the deputy prime minister of India, the head of the Russian Duma, the Iraqi prime minister and representatives of Taliban from Afghanistan, he reported.
“I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions in Gaza… to express our condolences,” Haniyeh told those present. He said he met Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan and heard the late president say that Palestine was the key issue in the Muslim world.
Khamenei declared five days of national mourning. Memorials for Raisi and his entourage began on Tuesday in the city of Tabriz and the Shiite clerical center of Qom.
After Wednesday’s procession, Raisi’s body will be taken to his hometown of Mashhad in the northeast of the country, where he will be buried after funeral rites at the Imam Reza Shrine.
The remains of other people who died in the accident will also be sent to their hometowns for burial.
Investigation
State television announced Raisi’s death on Monday morning, a day after the helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountain in northwestern Iran on its way to the city of Tabriz.
A search and rescue operation was launched, with help from Turkey, Russia and the European Union.
Questions have been raised about whether Raisi, Amirabdollahian and the others should be traveling in a two-blade Bell 212 believed to be decades old.
Foreign sanctions on Iran, dating back to the 1979 revolution and later to its nuclear program and its support for the so-called “axis of resistance,” have made it difficult for the country to obtain aircraft parts or new aircraft.
The country’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Mohammad Bagheri, ordered an investigation into the cause of the helicopter crash.
Raisi was elected president in 2021 and was widely expected to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader.
In Wednesday’s procession, huge banners hailed the late president as “the martyr of service” and “the servant of the disadvantaged.”
But he leaves a complex legacy, having overseen the deepening economic crisis and a harsh crackdown on mass protests that erupted in 2022 following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Khamenei, who holds the highest authority in Iran, appointed Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, 68, as interim president until the June 28 election for Raisi’s successor.
“Iranian society is deeply divided along political lines,” said Al Jazeera’s Serdar.
“In the last elections, participation has been decreasing. Turnout is one of the main sources of political legitimacy for the political establishment here, and we can see that it is declining and many people are losing faith in elections,” he said.
“The political establishment here will mobilize all means and capabilities to try to increase this participation and show that the nation is united behind the political establishment.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
