The body of Ali Khamenei lay in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects to Iran’s late supreme leader, slain by US and Israeli bombs.
Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei, whose 37-year reign was brought to an end in February by the first airstrike of the war, in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary zeal.
Khamenei’s body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala, the great Shia centers of Iran and Iraq, before being laid to rest on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.
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His coffin was unveiled late on Thursday to a throng of sobbing supporters, swaying and beating their heads in time to a sung lament as flowers were thrown from the bier into the crowd. On Friday the coffin – and those of family members killed with him – was laid in state in the great prayer hall built to honor his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini.
