Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be laid to rest on July 9, Iran announces tribute programs

Tehran, June 14. The program organized in memory of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will start from July 4. According to Iranian media reports, this information has been given in a statement issued by the headquarters established in his memory. According to the statement, tribute events will be held at the Imam Khomeini Mosala prayer hall in Tehran on July 4 and 5. After this, the last journey will be taken out in the capital Tehran and the city of Qom in central Iran on 6 and 7 July.

After this, the last rites will be held in the north-eastern city of Mashhad on July 9. The late leader will be buried on the same day at the holy shrine complex of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims. According to Xinhua, Khamenei, who was Iran’s supreme leader for a long time, was killed in a joint air strike by the US and Israel on February 28. In early March, his son Mojtaba Khamenei was elected Iran’s new supreme leader.

Khamenei’s death in March was said to be the result of a historic attack by the US and Israel. The incident was considered a major turning point for Iran’s 46-year-old Shia theocratic rule, while Tehran’s retaliation escalated tensions and conflicts in many parts of the Middle East. The then US President Donald Trump had announced Khamenei’s death at that time. Khamenei was 86 years old and had been ruling Iran with an iron fist for the last 36 years.

Trump wrote on his social media platform ‘Truth Social’, “He could not escape our intelligence and highly advanced tracking systems. Working together with Israel, we found him and neither he nor the other leaders killed with him could escape it.” Iran’s Fars News Agency quoted sources as saying on Sunday that four of Khamenei’s relatives were also killed in the US-Israeli attacks. These included his daughter, a grandson and his son-in-law.