Iran's supreme leader holds funeral for president killed in helicopter crash
Iran's supreme leader presided over a funeral for the country’s late President Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University on Wednesday, holding the service over the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Mr Khamenei said in an Arabic prayer. After he left, crowds of mourners rushed to touch the coffins and pay their respects.
Iran's acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service.
People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders and loaded them onto a truck for a procession through Tehran to Azadi, where Mr Raisi gave speeches in the past.
Iran’s theocracy declared five days of mourning after the fatal crash on Sunday.
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 in a remote mountainside during heavy fog.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined but Iran's military chief has launched an investigation.
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...