Iran Prepares to Bury President Known as ‘Butcher of Tehran’

Iran’s president killed in a helicopter crash Sunday was given a a grand send-off on Wednesday in Tehran with prayers led by the supreme leader.

Thousands of pro-regime supporters gathered in the Tehran University campus to pay their respects to the delegation who were all killed in a freak accident on the Azerbaijan border.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei led the prayers for the delegation which Included foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, due to be buried Thursday.

Dressed in black, attendees held photos of Raisi, a president whose tenure was marked by increasing authoritarian measures from hijab crackdowns to internet bans in addition to massive economic decline.

His legacy will remain one of brutality having been responsible for mass state-sanctioned killings in the 1980s. Thousands of dissidents were murdered and later, under Raisi’s presidency, more than 500 protesters were murdered by state forces during the uprising of 2022 and 2023 a record year for executions.

The ceremony saw Raisi and the delegation’s coffins journey from Tabriz to Tehran, and then on to the religious city of Qom before returning to Tehran as the regime paid homage to one of its loyal servants, having given over 40 years to the government as he climbed the ranks.

Raisi was being groomed to become the next supreme leader by the current dictator, Ali Khamenei, but under his failing policies he was increasingly pushed aside in recent months.

Raisi will be laid to rest in the religious city of Mashhad, his hometown, but Amir-Abdollahian will be buried in Shahr-e Rey, southern Tehran on Thursday.

Vice-president Mohammad Mokhber has stepped in as caretaker with presidential elections announced for June 28.