Speaker leaves for Iran to join Khamenei’s funeral

Parliament Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad along with some MPs left for Iran on Thursday (2 July) to join the namaz-e-janaza of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran.

The Speaker departed from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at 7:30 am. Rajshahi-1 MP Professor Mujibur Rahman and some other MPs also left Dhaka with him.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was born on 19 April 1939 in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, was killed in an airstrike carried out by US and Israeli forces on 28 February at the age of 86.

The funeral activities of Khamenei will begin in Tehran on Thursday (4 July) and he will be buried in his hometown of Mashhad on 9 July. Iranian authorities are expecting around 20 million people to attend the funeral and burial ceremonies.

Hafiz Uddin Ahmad will join the funeral prayers on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. He went there at the invitation of Iranian Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

The Speaker of Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad is scheduled to return to the country on 4 July.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had played a significant role in the country’s new political system. In 1980, he briefly served as Iran's defence minister.

After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, he assumed the responsibility of supervising the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was later elected President of Iran.

Following the death of Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Iran's Assembly of Experts elected Ayatollah Khamenei as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.