Iran’s supreme leader prays for late Prez, others killed in helicopter crash
DUBAI: Iran’s supreme leader prayed Wednesday over the coffins of the country’s late president, foreign minister and other officials who were killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week. Later, hundreds of thousands of people followed a procession honouring the dead down Tehran’s main boulevard.
Iran’s Shiite theocracy views mass demonstrations as crucial evidence of its legitimacy and the people’s support.
Still, Wednesday’s funeral service for President Ebrahim Raisi and others saw a turnout that onlookers described as noticeably lower than the 2020 procession honouring Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad.
Many of the participants said they came to Tehran for the ceremony from other cities and towns across the Islamic Republic, an indication of how those in Iran’s capital viewed Raisi, who won the presidency in a record low turnout and later oversaw repeated crackdowns on all dissent — including in the wake of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini that sparked street protests over Iran’s mandatory hijab, or headscarf.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly wept for Soleimani, also remained composed while reciting the standard prayer for the dead.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Khamenei said in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly cried.
The death of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others in the crash on Sunday comes at a politically sensitive moment for Iran, both at home and abroad.
Raisi, who was 63, had been discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. None of Iran’s living past presidents — other than Khamenei, who was president from 1981 until 1989 — could be seen in state television footage of Wednesday’s prayers. The authorities gave no explanation for their apparent absence.
Following the deadly helicopter crash, Iran set June 28 as the next presidential election. For now, there’s no clear favourite for the position among Iran’s political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi.
During Raisi’s term in office, Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel last month as its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip rages on. Iran has supported Hamas throughout the war and provided weaponry to the militants.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended the prayers Wednesday morning, just two days after the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor said he’d seek an arrest warrant for him and others over the October 7 attack that sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war. The ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct in the war, which has seen more than 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and also hundreds in the West Bank.