AP – Iran’s supreme leader presided over a funeral yesterday for the country’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, as tens of thousands later followed a procession of their caskets through the capital, Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them.
“Oh Allah the Almighty, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Khamenei said in his prayer in Arabic. After he left, the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service.
People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders. They loaded them onto a semitruck trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or “Freedom,” Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past.
In attendance were top leaders of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country’s major power centres. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. “I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza… to express our condolences,” Haniyeh told those gathered.
