Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, died inside a hospital in Tehran, the official news agency IRNA said. He had been connected to an intensive care unit (ICU) artificial breathing apparatus.
He had been suffering from a blood disease that had badly damaged his bodys self-defence mechanism.
In February, Meshkini, 86, was re-appointed as head of the Assembly of Experts, a key constitutional supervisory body, amid speculation that he would forego the position to Irans former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Meshkini was also the Friday prayers leader in the holy city of Qom.
Rafsanjani along with another hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi were appointed as the constitutional bodys vice-chairmen.
The 86-member Assembly of Experts is an exclusively clerical body entrusted with the task of selecting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution.
