Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was laid to rest today, May 23, in a funeral ceremony held in Tabriz, Iran.
The funeral was attended by top government officials, including Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who declared five days of national mourning following Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Raisi, 63, was killed along with his foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, and six others in a mountainous and forested area in East Azerbaijan province amid dense fog.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has blamed US sanctions for preventing Iran from having good aviation facilities.
World leaders, including Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, have expressed their condolences to the government and people of Iran.
The African Union and European Union have also extended their condolences, while Palestinian group Hamas and Hezbollah movement in Lebanon have praised Raisi’s support for the Palestinians.
Israel has denied any involvement in the crash, but some have raised suspicions of possible external interference. An investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing.
