Iran’s supreme leader prays for late president and others killed in helicopter crash – Sun Sentinel

By JON GAMBRELL (Associated Press)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader prayed Wednesday over the coffins of the country’s late president, foreign minister and other officials killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week. Hundreds of thousands of people later followed a procession honoring the dead on Tehran’s main boulevard.

Iran’s Shiite theocracy sees mass demonstrations as crucial proof of its legitimacy and popular support.

Still, attendance at Wednesday’s funeral for President Ebrahim Raisi and others was significantly lower, according to spectators, than at the 2020 procession honoring Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

Many of the participants said they came to Tehran for the ceremony from other cities and towns in the Islamic Republic. That’s an indication of how people in the Iranian capital perceived Raisi, who won the presidential election with record-low voter turnout and later repeatedly enforced a crackdown on any dissent – including after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 sparked street protests against the headscarf requirement in Iran.

Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly wept for Soleimani, remained calm as he recited the standard prayer for the dead.

“Oh Allah, we have seen nothing but good from him,” Khamenei said in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Koran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed forward and reached out to touch the coffins. Iran’s incumbent President Mohammad Mokhber stood nearby and wept openly.

The deaths of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others in Sunday’s plane crash come at a politically sensitive time for Iran, both at home and abroad.

The 63-year-old Raisi had been discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. None of Iran’s living former presidents – except Khamenei, who was president from 1981 to 1989 – were seen in state television footage of Wednesday prayers. Authorities gave no explanation for their apparent absence.

After the deadly helicopter crash, Iran has scheduled its next presidential election for June 28. There is currently no clear favorite for the office among Iran’s political elite – especially someone who is a Shiite cleric like Raisi.

During Raisi’s term, Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel last month as the war against Hamas rages on in the Gaza Strip. Iran has supported Hamas throughout the war, supplying the militants with weapons.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended prayers on Wednesday morning, just two days after the International Criminal Court prosecutor said he would seek an arrest warrant for him and others over the Oct. 7 attack that marked the latest war between Israel and the United States Hamas triggered. Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage in the unprecedented attack on southern Israel.

The ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct in the war that killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and hundreds in the West Bank.

Haniyeh reported meeting Raisi earlier this year in Tehran during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key issue for the Muslim world. He also described Raisi calling the October 7 attack an “earthquake at the heart of Zionist unity.”

Haniyeh’s presence at the funeral likely signaled that Khamenei intends to continue his policy of arming militant groups across the Middle East – including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – to pressure his opponents such as Israel and the United States to exercise.

Mourners at the ceremony chanted: “Death to Israel!”

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and an Afghan Taliban delegation, including its Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi, are expected to attend services in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also flew in for the ceremony.

Even Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry traveled to Tehran, even though diplomatic relations between the countries were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Egypt and Iran have recently discussed restoring relations.

During the morning service, a single black turban was placed on Raisi’s coffin, indicating that he was considered a direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders while chanting “Death to America!” erupted outside. The coffins were loaded onto a tractor-trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or “Freedom,” Square.

People wept openly and beat their chests, a common sign of mourning in Shiite culture. They threw scarves and other possessions onto the tractor-trailer that drove the coffins around Tehran, and the coffin guards rubbed the items on the coffins in a gesture of blessing.

One man said he and his friends took a nearly seven-hour bus ride to attend the procession. Many expressed their condolences for the dead, including Raisi.

“He was our president, the others were pilots and a minister, how can I be indifferent to their loss?” asked Sima Rahmani, a 27-year-old woman from Tehran who wore a loose headscarf despite the risk of arrest by police.

Prosecutors have warned the public not to publicly celebrate Raisi’s death. A heavy security presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash. Many shops and stores in Tehran remained conspicuously open during the ceremony, while some left early for a long weekend.

“I didn’t vote for Raisi in the 2021 election, but he was the president of all the people,” said Morteza Nemati, a 28-year-old physics student at Tehran’s Azad University. “My presence is a way to pay tribute to him.”

Meanwhile, an Iranian official provided a new account of Sunday’s crash, further fueling the theory that bad weather was the cause. Gholamhossein Esmaili, who was traveling in one of the other two helicopters in Raisi’s entourage, told state television that the weather was good when the plane took off. But Raisi’s helicopter disappeared into thick clouds and the others could not reach the plane by radio.

Neither Amirabdollahian nor a bodyguard on board responded to calls. But Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the Friday prayer leader from the city of Tabriz who was also on board, somehow answered two cellphone calls and said he was injured, Esmaili said.

It was not clear why Iran could not track the phone signal at the time.

“The condition of the bodies found showed that they (died) immediately after the incident,” Esmaili said. “But Ayatollah Ale-Hashem (died) a few hours after the incident. He was alive for a short time.”

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Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Joseph Krauss in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Munir Ahmed and Riazat Butt in Islamabad contributed to this report.