Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Will Lead Wednesday's Funeral Prayer, President Raisi Buried In Kampung Page

Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Wikimedia Commons/Khademei.ir)

JAKARTA - Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohsen Mansouri, funeral procession for the late President Ebrahim Raisi and his entire entourage will be held on Wednesday, which was announced as a national holiday.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is said to be leading prayers for the late President Raisi and other bodies in Tehran, reported IRNA May 21.

Mansouri noted that a separate funeral ceremony will be held for President Raisi in South Khorasan Province on Thursday and he will be buried in his hometown, Mashhad, on the same day.

President Raisi and his entourage, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollhian, recently returned from an event on the border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate the dam project on Sunday, when their helicopter crashed in bad weather conditions in mountainous areas northwestern Iran.

Search and rescue officers found the crash site in the dense forest of Dizmar in East Azerbaijan Province on Monday morning after an 18-hour operation, hampered by thick fog, rain, and steep terrain in the area.

The bodies of President Ebrahim Raisi and members of his delegation, who died in Sunday's helicopter crash, were identified and did not need to do a DNA test, Iran's head of Disaster Management Organization said.

Meanwhile, Hojjatoleslam Mahmoud Hosseini, director of the local office of Iran's Islamic Da'wah Organization in Tabriz, said the bodies of President Ebrahim Raisi and his colleagues were still in Tabriz and a ceremony of respect would be held in the northwestern city before the bodies were brought to Tehran.

Hosseini said the bodies would be kept at Tabriz's funeral until Monday evening local time. Meanwhile, during Tuesday's tribute ceremony, Tabriz's people would say goodbye to the president and other victims, before being taken to Tabriz Airport to be flown to Tehran.

He also said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would lead prayers for the late president, before being buried a day later in his hometown in Mashhad.