Performer at former Iranian supreme leader’s funeral calls for death of Trump

A performer at the funeral for Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the death of US President Donald Trump before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday in the capital Tehran.

The comment represents the first, direct call for Mr Trump’s death by a figure at the funeral, which has seen posters and graffiti calling for the killing of the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – a hardline demand even as Tehran negotiates with the US over a permanent end to the war that has disrupted global energy supplies.

Poet Mohammad Rasouli drew calls of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Speaking to the crowd, he drew cheers when, referring to Mr Trump, he asked: “Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?”

He drew cheers from the crowd when he said that “the world is no longer a good place” for Mr Trump.

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, later led a prayer at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla for Mr Khamenei and his late family members.

A far-larger crowd for the funeral than the day before attended the ceremony on Sunday.

Mourners dressed in black walked to the site, carrying banners and flags honouring Mr Khamenei and also calling for Mr Trump’s killing as he gave a speech in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

“We’ve had tremendous success,” Mr Trump said, speaking of the American military.

“You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We wiped it out, wiped out their military.”

The funeral for Mr Khamenei, who ruled Iran for decades before he was killed aged 86 in a February 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 US 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.

US federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Mr Trump and other administration officials following his ordering of the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani, who led the expeditionary Quds Force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Iran repeatedly has denied plotting to kill the US president, although hardline propaganda footage has long suggested he was in Tehran’s crosshairs.

Mr Trump promised to destroy Iran’s very civilisation during the war among a variety of other threats.