TEHRAN (AP) A leading Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani, who headed the country’s most influential clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing the nation’s supreme leader, has died. He was 83.
Comprised of 86 religious figures and lawyers and elected by the people, the Assembly of Experts chooses the supreme leader and monitors his actions.
That makes it potentially one of the most powerful institutions in Iran, although it does not involve itself the daily affairs of state.
President Hassan Rouhani declared two days of national mourning.
Kani held the top post at the Assembly of Experts since March 2011.
Kani was also the dean of Imam Sadiq University, a Tehran school of learning seen as a training ground for future leaders, and his body has been taken there so that students can pay their respects.
The Assembly of Experts grants Iran’s supreme leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an indefinite term but it retains the power to sack him, if it sees fit.
The Assembly has only once picked a supreme leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in 1989, when it chose Ayatollah Khamenei to succeed founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
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