The body of Ayatollah 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 U.S. and Israeli bombs.
The commemoration began in Tehran on Friday, and funeral ceremonies and processions will run for seven days, with religious rites planned in cities across Iran and Iraq.
Friday’s event is the one most foreign leaders will attend.
On Saturday and Sunday, public ceremonies will take place in Tehran. The coffin of Khamenei alongside several of his family members will be placed in the Grand Mosalla, one of Iran’s largest prayer complexes, for public viewing.
On Monday and Tuesday, the funeral processions will move southwards towards the Iranian city of Qom. On Wednesday, an official reception will be held at Najaf International Airport in Iraq, followed by public processions in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, according to Iranian and Iraqi leaders.
The body will then return to Iran for the final burial ceremony at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Friday. Mashhad is also where Khamenei was born.
Representatives from more than 100 countries are expected to attend the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which starts on Friday, according to Iranian state-linked news broadcaster IRIB.
Khamenei was killed aged 86 in a joint United States-Israeli air strike on his compound on February 28, the first day of the US-Israel war on Iran.
