The funeral procession for Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi got underway this morning less than 48 hours after his helicopter plunged into a mountainside in the country’s northwest on Sunday evening.
Thousands of mourners packed the streets of Tabriz this morning, flanked by heavily armed guards, as Iranian officials and dignitaries delivered speeches, played music and prayed for the fallen president.
The crowd then parted to make way for a white truck carrying the coffins of Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian along with seven others who perished in the crash.
The bed of the truck was wide open to display the coffins which were adorned with images of the dead and covered in flowers, and mourners were seen running alongside it to pay their respects.
Several extended their arms, frantically trying to touch the coffins of the dead, but were pushed away by guards.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei yesterday declared the nation will observe five days of mourning from today following the fatal crash.
But the regime was said to be furious that many Iranians at home and abroad were celebrating Raisi’s death as social media was flooded with footage of revellers evidently delighted at the news.
The bed of the truck was wide open to display the coffins which were adorned with images of the dead and covered in flowers
Mourners scramble to touch the coffins of the dead
Thousands of mourners packed the streets of Tabriz this morning
People walk past a billboard with a picture of the late Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi on a street in Tehran, Iran May 21, 2024
The funeral of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
A white truck carrying the coffins of Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian along with seven others who perished in the crash is seen making its way through Tabriz
Men hang a huge portrait of Iran’s late president Ebrahim Raisi outside the Iranian embassy in Baghdad on May 20, 2024
Raisi, 63, was confirmed dead by Iranian media yesterday morning along with Abdollahian, the Governor of Eastern Azerbaijan province Malek Rahmati and Tabriz’s Friday prayer Imam Mohammad Ali Alehashem.
Two pilots and three other Iranian officials and security guards also died in the crash in the mountainous northwest of the country.
Drone footage from Iranian and Turkish news agencies revealed the helicopter – an aged US-made Bell 212 – had smashed apart on landing, while clips shared by the Iranian Red Crescent showed solemn rescuers carrying corpses on covered stretchers out of the forest surrounding the crash site.
Iran is yet to provide any details surrounding the crash, nor has it offered an explanation besides a simple statement on the poor weather conditions.
But Iranian aircraft, particularly Western-supplied models such as the US-made chopper carrying Raisi, are notoriously unsafe and in a state of disrepair as the Islamic Republic has long been subject to Western sanctions that prevent access to desperately needed spare parts.
It is not known when Raisi’s helicopter was manufactured, but the Bell 212 has been in use with governments around the world for more than 50 years, first entering service in the early 70s.
According to the Islamic Republic’s constitution, a new presidential election will need to be called within 50 days.
But Raisi’s death is sure to trigger a power struggle, with a variety of ambitious candidates now set to vie for power.
Rescue team members work at the scene of a crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Monday, May 20, 2024
Iranian rescue workers work near the wreckage of the crashed Iranian President helicopter, in the area of Varzaghan, Tabriz province, southwestern Iran, 20 May 2024
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is confirmed dead after rescuers found a helicopter carrying him and other officials that had crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran. Drone footage from the site of the crash is seen in this still image
This grab taken from handout video footage released by the Iranian Red Cescent on May 20, 2024 shows rescuers recovering bodies at the site of President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash
Rescuers are seen searching the site of the crash
A handout picture provided by the Iranian presidency on May 19, 2024, shows Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who died on Sunday
Raisi, who became president of Iran in 2021, was widely seen as a vassal for the regime and a yes man to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
He stormed to the presidency with a huge majority following the 2021 elections – but less than half of Iran’s electorate turned out to vote after many more moderate candidates were barred from running.
As a young student at a religious seminary in the holy city of Qom, Raisi took part in protests against the Western-backed Shah in the 1979 revolution.
His contacts with religious leaders in Qom made him a trusted figure in the judiciary, and he became Iran’s deputy prosecutor aged just 25.
Raisi quickly worked his way to the top – and in doing so earned himself the moniker ‘the Butcher of Tehran’.
As deputy prosecutor and subsequently chief prosecutor, Raisi stood on the so-called ‘death committee’ – a group of four judges who presided over tribunals in 1988 that were assembled to ‘re-try’ the regime’s political prisoners.
Thousands of these prisoners were ruthlessly executed and dumped in unmarked graves. The exact number of deaths is not known but rights groups estimate roughly 5,000 people were killed following Raisi’s brutal judgement.
Not only was Raisi loyal to the Republic and its Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, but throughout the 1980s he had developed a close relationship with the then-president of Iran, Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei went onto become Iran’s Supreme Leader following the death of Khomeini in 1989, and is undoubtedly responsible for charting Raisi’s path to the presidency in 2021.
Following Raisi’s election, his hardline position became yet more evident.
In 2022, he ordered tighter enforcement of Iran’s ‘hijab and chastity law’ restricting women’s dress and behaviour.
It was under these orders that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was detained in September 2022 by Iran’s ‘morality police’ for wearing ‘improper’ hijab and died three days later in hospital, sparking mass unrest.
The resulting months of nationwide protests presented one of the gravest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Hundreds of people were killed, according to rights groups, including dozens of security personnel who were part of a fierce crackdown on the demonstrators.
