The body of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was buried in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad this Thursday (23), as thousands of people filled the streets for his funeral, images broadcast by the country's media showed.
This comes four days after Raisi's death in a helicopter crash.
At 63, he was seen as a candidate to succeed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 85, who holds maximum power in Iran. Mohammad Mokhber, who is first vice president, serves as interim president until elections in June.
The burial ceremony was attended by military authorities and the Iranian government.
Flowers were thrown at Raisi's coffin as he moved slowly in a truck through the crowd.
He was buried in the golden-domed Imam Reza shrine, Iran's holiest Islamic site and revered as the resting place of the 9th-century Imam Ali al-Reza.
Earlier, thousands of people paid their respects as the coffin was driven in a motorcade through the eastern town of Birjand.
Eight passengers and crew died when the helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near the border with Azerbaijan. Among them was Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.
A ceremony was held to honor Amirabdollahian at the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, where acting foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani described him as a martyr who “guaranteed the revolutionary nature of the Foreign Ministry.”
The minister's body was buried south of Tehran in the city of Rey's Shah Abdolazim shrine, a mausoleum where notable Iranian politicians and artists are buried.
Five days of mourning
Iran has declared five days of mourning for Raisi, who enacted hardline policies of his mentor Khamenei aimed at consolidating Shiite clerical power and suppressing public dissent.
He has also adopted a hard line on foreign policy issues, such as discussions with the United States to resume the 2015 Iranian nuclear pact.
The presidential election is scheduled for June 28.
Source: CNN Brasil
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