Supreme Leader Khamenei leads funeral prayer for Iranian President Raisi

The funeral prayer at the Tehran University campus was led by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hundreds of thousands who wanted to enter the prayer area, which had limited capacity, waited at the university gates.

Hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to attend the funeral ceremony to be held at Azadi Square after the prayer also gathered at Enghelab Square, right next to the university, and on the roads leading to the area.

?? Helikopter kazasında hayatını kaybeden İran Cumhurbaşkanı İbrahim Reisi, Dışişleri Bakanı Hüseyin Emir Abdullahiyan ve diğer yetkililer için başkent Tahran'da cenaze namazı kılındı. Cenazeye yüzbinlerce insan katıldı. pic.twitter.com/tjH8BOry1l

— 12punto (@12puntocomtr) May 22, 2024

Due to the increasing crowd and difficulties in walking, officials directed the public from Azadi Street to Azadi Square, where the ceremony was to be held.

The public began marching toward the square.

After the ceremony to be held in the coming hours, President Raisi's body will be sent to the city of Mashhad, while the body of Foreign Minister Abdollahian will remain in Tehran, where he will be buried.

The burial procedures will be carried out following the ceremonies to be held tomorrow.

WHO IS EBRAHIM RAISI?

Born on November 4, 1960, in the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi completed his education in Qom, which is considered the intellectual center of Shia Islam.

In 1975, during a period of growing discontent against the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, he attended meetings in this city with the country's leading Iranian religious scholars and was influenced by the revolutionary ideas of Khomeini, the architect of the Iranian revolution, and especially his view that state policy and administration should be under the supervision of religious scholars.

Hossein-Ali Montazeri named Raisi as one of the four people involved in the execution of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. Raisi served as the prosecutor of Tehran between 1989 and 1994, as the prosecutor-general of the Special Clerical Court between 1994 and 2004, and as the First Judge of the Supreme Court between 2004 and 2014.

Raisi, who played an important role in suppressing the protests that took place after the 2009 presidential elections, was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei in 2016 to head Astan Quds Razavi, the country's largest foundation. In this position, which gave Raisi significant influence, he took over the management of assets worth billions of dollars.

Despite his high rank in the country's administration, Raisi, who made harsh statements regarding the fight against corruption, ran against Hassan Rouhani in the 2017 presidential election but lost.

Ebrahim Raisi became the Head of the Judiciary in 2019. Immediately after taking office, Raisi opened corruption cases against government officials and prominent business people, and continued his criticisms of the former Rouhani government.

Ebrahim Raisi became the 8th President of the country according to the official election results in Iran.

Ebrahim Raisi lost his life on May 19, 2024, as a result of a helicopter crash that occurred in mountainous terrain in the East Azerbaijan province.