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Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on Friday paid their respects to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in a US-Israeli strike on February 28.

Khamenei’s body arrived at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla on Friday ahead of his funeral. Apart from PM Shehbaz and CDF Munir, other foreign dignitaries, clerics, officials and mourners also paid their respects as the body lay in state in a vast hall.

Photos showed mourners carrying Khamenei’s coffin, emblazoned with Iran’s tricolour flag, into the Grand Mosalla, one of the Islamic republic’s most important ceremonial venues.

Others show crowds at a pre-funeral ceremony clad in black, as the coffin was set down against a backdrop of red flowers and white butterflies hanging in the air.