Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi passed away
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the Expediency Discernment Council, died in Tehran on Monday, January 25, after a long illness. He was born and raised in Iraq, but came to Iran after the 1979 revolution and assumed important responsibilities in the Islamic Republic.
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the Expediency Discernment Council, died in Tehran at 22:03 on Monday, December 24, 2018, at the age of 70. He had been suffering from a digestive disease for a long time and had been hospitalized at Khatam al-Anbia Hospital in recent weeks due to the worsening of his illness.
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi was born in Najaf on August 14, 1948, into a clerical family. He grew up in the same city and studied philosophy. He was one of the students of Seyyed Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr and studied with Ruhollah Khomeini for a while, and was considered a follower of the founder of the Islamic Republic.
Hashemi Shahroudi came to Iran after the fall of the monarchy in 1979 and became a liaison between the new Iranian government led by Ayatollah Khomeini and the clerics based in Najaf.
After the start of the Iran-Iraq war in 1970, at the request of the leaders of the newly established Islamic regime in Iran, he established an organization called the "Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq", whose goal was apparently to establish an "Islamic revolution" similar to that in Iran in Iraq. But it did not yield any results. After the fall of Saddam, the "Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq" became one of the Shiite political parties in Iraq by removing the phrase "Islamic Revolution" from its name.
Hashemi Shahroudi became a member of the Guardian Council in 1994 and was appointed head of the judiciary in 1999. He replaced Mohammad Yazdi in this position and at the beginning of his activity in this position, he said that he had taken over “a ruin” from Mohammad Yazdi.
After ten years as head of the judiciary, he handed over his position to Sadegh Larijani. In August 2017, after the death of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hashemi Shahroudi was appointed as head of the Expediency Discernment Council.
In recent years, Shahroudi has simultaneously been a member and deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a member and deputy chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, and a member of the Qom Seminary Teachers' Association, an organization of conservative clerics in Qom.
In May 2017, Shahroudi's trip to Hanover, Germany for medical treatment had many side effects. He had come to Germany at the invitation of Professor Samiei, an Iranian physician and neurosurgeon. At the same time as Shahroudi was in Hanover, a number of Iranians living in Germany gathered in front of the Neuroscience Clinic and began demonstrating.
Iranian protesters accused Hashemi Shahroudi of actively participating in the Islamic Republic's "black human rights case" and demanded that the German judiciary arrest and try him. However, such action by the German judiciary would require a legal action by German citizens.
As the protests escalated, Volker Beck, a member of the Green Party and former member of the German parliament, formally filed a complaint against Mahmoud Shahroudi on charges of “murder” and “crimes against humanity.” However, Hashemi Shahroudi left Germany for Iran before the complaint could be processed.
Hashemi Shahroudi's physical condition has deteriorated in recent months, to the point that he has been unable to attend Expediency Discernment Council meetings. He last attended a meeting of the Expediency Discernment Council on July 7, 2018.
Source: DW
