Performer calls for Trump's death at funeral for Iran's late supreme leader
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A performer at the funeral for Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the death of U.S. President Donald Trump before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people Sunday in the capital, Tehran.
The comment represents the first, direct call for Trump's death by an emcee at the funeral, which has seen posters and graffiti calling for the killing of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That's been a hard-line demand even as Tehran negotiates with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war that's disrupted global energy supplies.
Mohammad Rasouli, a poet, drew calls of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Speaking to the crowd over loudspeakers at the funeral, Rasouli asked, referring to Trump: “Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?”
The question drew cheers from the crowd, and again when Rasouli said that “the world is no longer a good place for” Trump.
Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, later led a prayer Sunday at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla for Khamenei and his late family members.
A far-larger crowd for the funeral than the day before attended the ceremony Sunday. Mourners dressed in black walked to the site, carrying banners and flags honoring Khamenei and also calling for Trump's killing as the American president gave a speech in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
“We’ve had tremendous success,” Trump said, speaking of the American military. “You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We wiped it out, wiped out their military.”
U.S. federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years. That stems from Trump ordering the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who led the expeditionary Quds Force of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Iran repeatedly has denied plotting to kill Trump, though hard-line propaganda footage long has suggested Trump was in Tehran's crosshairs.
Trump meanwhile promised to destroy Iran's very civilization during the war among a variety of other threats.
The funeral for Khamenei, who ruled Iran for decades before he was killed at age 86 in a Feb. 28 airstrike in the opening moments of the Iran war, could provide a boost for the country’s theocracy and its new supreme leader, his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
That is important as Iran tries to leverage its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war and as concern lingers that Israel could attack again.
The funeral was delayed as the war raged, and talks are on hold until it is over.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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