Iran’s state television on Sunday confirmed the death of Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a former president and a leading reformer, who had a stroke on Sunday. He was 82.
“Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the head of the expediency discernment council, after a lifetime of ceaseless endeavors towards the path of Islam and the revolution, left this world,” a ticker on the state television Channel One read.
His death is a huge blow for Iran’s marginalized reformist movement, and moderates in the government, for whom the Shiite Muslim cleric was a leader and figurehead.
“He will be missed,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, a political analyst close to the reformists, “but he was increasingly powerless, but gave us hope. Now we will have to do without him.”
Mr. Rafsanjani had a long career as a revolutionary, but was also suspected of accumulating great wealth and influence. He was one of the leaders of the 1979 Islamic revolution, an aide to the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
(Source: NYT)