Breacking News - Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani dead - political-news

Now Playing

Former Iranian president Rafsanjani dead at age 82

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential gift broker in the Islamic Republic who advised the country's unconditional leader, died Sunday after he was hospitalized for a heart condition, according to Iranian circulate media. He was 82.

The commissioner IRNA news agency reported earlier in the day that Rafsanjani had been taken to a public hospital north of the capital, Tehran. The semi-certified ISNA news agency quoted Mohammad Hashemi, his brother, as saying that Rafsanjani was in fine condition.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reportedly visited Rafsanjani in the hospital and a immediate era vanguard the former president was dead.

"With the death of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the two pillars and key to the equilibrium of the religious fascism ruling Iran has collapsed and the regime in its entirety is vis--vis overthrow," said Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in a avowal. "Over the p.s. 38 years, whether below Khomeini or afterwards, Rafsanjani played a necessary role in suppression at ablaze and export of terrorism abroad as accurately as in the quest to profit nuclear weapons."

Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, was a leading politician who has often played kingmaker in the country's turbulent politics. He supported Rouhani.

Rafsanjani was moreover a heavyweight similar to Iran's nuclear program, including the establish for its weaponization.

A central artist in the Islamic Revolution, the former Iranian president was alleged to be subsequent to numerous dread attacks. He openly called for the killing of Americans and added Westerners.

Nicknamed "The Shark," Rafsanjani was with nefarious for purging political opponents and intellectuals.

Rafsanjani was the current head of the Expediency Council, a body that advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and in March he won a seat in description to a clerical body that will one day say Khamenei's successor.

Fox News' Jonathan Wachtel and The Associated Press contributed to this marginal note.