The funeral procession for Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi got underway this morning less than 48 hours after his helicopter plunged into a mountainside in the country's northwest on Sunday evening. Thousands of mourners packed the streets of Tabriz this morning flanked by heavily armed guards as Iranian officials and dignitaries delivered speeches, played music and prayed for the fallen president.
A heaving crowd then parted to make way for a white truck carrying the coffins of Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian along with seven others who perished in the crash.
The bed of the truck was wide open to display the coffins which were adorned with images of the dead and covered in flowers, and mourners were seen running alongside it to pay their respects.
Several extended their arms, frantically trying to touch the coffins of the dead, but were pushed away by stern-faced guards.
From Tabriz, Raisi's body will be flown to the Shiite clerical centre of Qom later today before being moved to Tehran during the evening.
Processions will be held in the capital on Wednesday morning before Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.
Raisi's body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.
Khamenei yesterday declared the nation will observe five days of mourning from today following the fatal crash.
But the regime was said to be furious that many Iranians at home and abroad were celebrating Raisi's death as social media was flooded with footage of revellers evidently delighted at the news.
Raisi earned a reputation as a brutal, hardline executor of Khamenei's will during his presidential term, prior to which he was known as 'the Butcher of Tehran' for his role in ordering the executions of thousands of political prisoners.