Iran’s former president has appeared at the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei despite having been reported killed at the start of the war.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of millions of mourners who poured into Tehran dressed in black on Monday to escort the slain supreme leader’s coffin through the capital.
The former hardline president, who governed from 2005 to 2013, was declared dead by several Iranian state-affiliated media outlets on the opening day of the war, when Israeli and US strikes killed Khamenei and much of the country’s leadership.
It was thought he had been killed when a missile struck near his home.
He was never seen or heard from in the months that followed, and no official confirmation or denial of his fate was issued, leaving his status among the many uncertainties of the war’s chaotic first days.
On Monday, however, he was seen in public for the first time since the war, moving among the mourners in a jacket with a mask pulled down to his throat. » | Akhtar Makoli | Monday, July 6, 2026
