Iran’s late President, Ebrahim Raisi, is being buried in his residence metropolis of Mashhad, 4 days after he was killed in a helicopter crash.
The 63-year-old hard-line cleric will probably be laid to relaxation within the holy shrine of Imam Reza, a revered determine in Shia Islam.
TV photos confirmed massive crowds gathered in one of many north-eastern metropolis’s foremost streets forward of the ceremony.
Seven different folks died in Sunday’s crash throughout dangerous climate in Iran’s mountainous north-west.
They embrace Raisi’s overseas minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was buried on Thursday on the Shah Abdolazim shrine in Rey, a southern suburb of the capital Tehran.
Ebrahim Raisi’s burial on the gold-domed Imam Reza Shrine – a memorial to the eighth Shia imam, which is taken into account the holiest in Iran – comes after days of ceremonies elsewhere.
On Wednesday, leaders and different dignitaries from the nation’s allies and neighbours attended a commemorative occasion in Tehran.
They have been welcomed by Raisi’s former First Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber, 68, who will function appearing president till an election is held on 28 June.
Additionally current have been representatives of the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, a unfastened community of armed teams which obtain Iranian weapons, coaching and funds.
They included the political chief of the Iran-backed Palestinian armed group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, the deputy secretary-general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah motion, Naim Qassem, the spokesman of Yemen’s Houthis, Mohammed Abdulsalam, and the pinnacle Iraq’s paramilitary Standard Mobilisation Forces, Faleh al-Fayad.
Iran’s Supreme Chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, additionally led prayers for these killed.
Raisi was near the 85-year-old, who’s the last word authority within the Islamic Republic, and was extensively seen as a possible successor.
Senior Western officers have been noticeably absent from Wednesday’s ceremony, reflecting their nations’ strained relations with Iran.
Tens of 1000’s of individuals have taken half within the funeral processions in latest days, which the federal government and state media have portrayed as demonstrations of nationwide unity.
Nevertheless, many extra folks have stayed residence, with some even celebrating the president’s demise regardless of prosecutors warning that they may face prosecution.
Thousands and thousands despised Raisi for overseeing the lethal crackdown on the “Lady, Life, Freedom” protests that erupted in 2022, a 12 months after he took workplace.
He additionally confronted requires a world investigation into his alleged function on the “demise committee” which ordered the mass executions of political prisoners within the Nineteen Eighties.
His time as president will even be remembered for a deepening financial hardship and an unprecedented direct army confrontation with Israel final month, which raised fears of a regional battle.
Iranian authorities say they’re nonetheless investigating what triggered the helicopter crash during which he died.
Officers have mentioned the plane – a decades-old, US-made Bell 212 – hit a mountainside because it flew to the north-western metropolis of Tabriz in fog and heavy rain.
Raisi was travelling with Amir-Abdollahian, the governor of East Azerbaijan province, Malek Rahmati, and Tabriz’s Friday prayer chief, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, in addition to the pinnacle of the presidential safety group and the helicopter’s three crew following the inauguration of two dams on the border with Azerbaijan.
