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Iranians mourn former President Rafsanjani

Crowds fill streets of Tehran for funeral procession

By NASSER KARIMI and JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press
Published: January 10, 2017, 8:39pm
3 Photos
Iranians fill the streets as the coffin of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is carried on a truck to his final resting place Tuesday in Tehran.
Iranians fill the streets as the coffin of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is carried on a truck to his final resting place Tuesday in Tehran. (vahid salemi/Associated Press) Photo Gallery

TEHRAN, Iran — Hundreds of thousands mourned the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Tuesday, wailing in grief as his body was interred at a Tehran shrine alongside the leader of the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rafsanjani’s final resting place near the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, reflected his legacy as one of the pillars of Iran’s clerical-dominated political system, as he served in later years as a go-between for hard-liners and reformists.

But even his hourslong funeral highlighted the divisions still at play. Parts of the crowd along his funeral procession at one point chanted in support of opposition leaders under house arrest. Other politicians did not attend the memorial.

Throngs filled main thoroughfares of the capital, with many chanting, beating their chests and wailing in the style of mourning common among Shiite Muslims.

The funeral for Rafsanjani, who died Sunday at age 82 after a heart attack, drew both the elite and ordinary people. Shops and schools were closed in national mourning.

Top government and clerical officials first held a funeral service at Tehran University. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed by Rafsanjani’s casket, as other dignitaries knelt before the coffin on which his white cleric’s turban was placed.

Just behind Khamenei was President Hassan Rouhani, whose moderate administration reached the recent nuclear deal with world powers. Rouhani, who is all but certain to run for re-election in May, is viewed as embodying Rafsanjani’s realist vision.

Hard-liners also took part in the ceremony Tuesday, such as the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, who stood near his moderate brother, parliament speaker Ali Larijani.

Also among them was Qassem Soleimani, a general who heads the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, which focuses on foreign operations such as the war in Syria.

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who remains popular among the young but is deeply disliked by hard-liners, was apparently banned from the funeral. State media have banned the broadcasting images of Khatami.

Officials put the number of participants in the funeral at over 2 million, though that figure could not be independently verified.

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