Hundreds of mourners gather for funeral ceremonies of Iran President Rasi after helicopter crash
Hundreds of mourners have gathered for funeral ceremonies in Iran following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
The collision killed eight people, including Mr Raisi, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province Malek Rahmati, and other officials and bodyguards.
Iran’s government has arranged a five-day period of mourning culminating in a funeral later this week for the 63-year-old ultra-conservative president.
On Tuesday, funeral processions and prayers began in Tabriz, the largest city in the mountainous northwestern region of Iran where the helicopter crashed, according to Mohsen Mansouri, the head of the funeral planning committee and Iran’s vice president of executive affairs.
Later in the day, the bodies will be transferred to the holy Shiite city of Qom, where many of the clerics who make up Iran’s elite are trained, before then heading to the capital Tehran.
Large ceremonies are planned in Tehran’s Grand Mosallah Mosque on Wednesday. Mr Mansouri announced a public holiday and the closure of offices all over the country that day so that processions can take place.
Mr Raisi’s body will then be moved to the historic Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad where Ayatollah Khamenei will conduct prayers, according to Mehr News.
On Sunday, Mr Raisi was returning from a visit to Iran's border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev when his helicopter crashed into a remote mountainside during foggy weather.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined but the country's military chief has launched an investigation.
Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, named the vice president as the temporary successor to Mr Raisi.
Who was Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi?
Mr Raisi was a controversial political figure, known for his hardline conservatism and for helping to oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988, that would become known as “death commissions.”
After Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations (UN)-brokered ceasefire in the years-long Iran-Iraq war, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border from Iraq in a surprise attack.
The trials began around that time, with defendants asked to identify themselves. Those who responded “mujahedeen” were sent to their deaths, while others were questioned about their willingness to “clear minefields for the army of the Islamic Republic,” according to a 1990 Amnesty International report.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Mr Raisi served on the commissions, earning him the nickname the 'Butcher of Tehran'.
“I am proud of being a defender of human rights and of people’s security and comfort as a prosecutor wherever I was,” he said in 2021 after being elected.
His leadership was marked by internal dissidence after mass protests swept the country in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
The ensuing security crackdown saw demonstrations kill more than 500 people and more than 22,000 others were detained.
In March, a UN investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
By 2023, Iranian-backed Hamas targeted Israeli, mounting tensions in the Middle East and sparking a war in Gaza. Last month, Tehran launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel itself - its first ever direct attack on the country - in response to a deadly apparent Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...