Prayers were held yesterday over the casket of late Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the second day of funeral ceremonies that have drawn huge crowds to pay their final respects in Tehran.
Khamenei ruled the Islamic republic from 1989 until he was killed aged 86 in an airstrike on the first day of the US-Israeli war with Iran on Feb. 28.
Yesterday’s service at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla complex was led by prominent Shiite cleric Ja’far Sobhani, a 97-year-old scholar who teaches in seminaries at the holy city of Qom.
Photo: AP
Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is said to have been wounded in the Feb. 28 attack, has not appeared in public since being named supreme leader and was notably absent from the funeral prayers.
The late supreme leader’s other three sons, Masoud, Mostafa and Meysam, were in attendance.
Yesterday was declared a public holiday across Iran, and later in the day, Ali Khamenei’s body was to be moved from the Grand Mosalla complex where it is lying in state in preparation for processions through the capital today.
The vast religious complex and surrounding streets were packed with mourners yesterday morning.
With temperatures set to exceed 35°C, mourners carrying Iranian flags and portraits of Ali Khamenei, as they made their way to the Grand Mosalla, were handed refreshments.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attended the ceremony alongside senior officials including Iranian Parliamentary Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, state television footage showed.
Ali Khamenei’s coffin, draped in the Iranian flag and topped with his black turban, was placed alongside the coffins of four relatives also killed in the February strikes, including an infant granddaughter.
Authorities have said they expect more than 10 million people to take part in ceremonies in Tehran.
After five weeks of intense hostilities, the Middle East war is on hold after a ceasefire and an initial accord with the US, but Washington and Tehran have warned they are ready to resume fighting at any time.
Ali Khamenei’s funeral is being viewed outside Iran as a test of support for the government following mass protests before the war in January that rights groups say were quelled by a crackdown that left thousands dead.
“What is observed today in the emotions, tears, and passionate presence of the people in various scenes is the most telling sign of his position among the Iranian nation and the free people of the world,” Pezeshkian said in a speech on Saturday, accusing Israel in particular of acting as a “destabilizing factor” in the Middle East.
“Muslims have shown that they will not surrender to oppression and bullying,” he added.
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