No need for DNA tests as bodies of President Raisi, his entourage, identified, says Iranian official

The bodies of President Ebrahim Raisi and members of his delegation, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday, have been identified and there is no need to conduct DNA tests, the head of Iran’s Disaster Management Organization has said.

Mohammad Hassan Nami told IRNA on Monday that "all the bodies were recognizable and have been transferred to the Legal Medicine Organization."

President Raisi and his entourage, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollhian, were returning from an event on the border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam project on Sunday when their helicopter crashed in harsh weather conditions over mountainous terrain of Iran’s northwest.

Search and rescue workers located the crash site in the dense Dizmar forest in East Azerbaijan Province early on Monday following an 18-hour operation, which was hampered by heavy fog, rain and the rugged terrain of the area.

Nami said all the bodies were recognizable despite burns. Among them, the body of Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, Friday Prayers leader of Tabriz, was in a better condition, he added.

"He was alive for up to an hour after the air accident and even had a telephone conversation with Mr. Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili, the head of the President's Office," the official pointed out.