Media reports from Iran say that the health condition of Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi has turned worse and he is in the intensive care unit of a hospital.
Ayatollah Shahroudi is the head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council (EDC) and a long-time conservative ally of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei.
Mehr News agency quoting “unofficial sources” says Sharoudi is not in a good condition and Qom News has called on the “pious and God-loving people to pray for him”.
Other media outlets have also published similar reports.
Ayatollah Sharoudi has not appeared in public since mid-summer and EDC Secretary, former iRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei has explained his absence from meetings as “recommended by doctors”.
The senior cleric was appointed by Khamenei as chairman of EDC in the summer of 2017, after the controversial death of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani a key politician and power-broker from the early days of Iran’s revolution.
The EDC had been under the chairmanship of Rafsanjani since its inception. The council is tasked by the constitution to act as arbiter between parliament and the Guardian Council, which must approve all legislation, to make sure compatibility with Islamic laws and increasingly, with Khamenei’s wishes.
Although his illness was said to be a common digestive system problem, but last December he was reported to have been hospitalized in Germany for treatment of a serious health problem.
German authorities were considering to file charges against him for his role in major human rights violation based on a complaint by a German lawmaker who accused the cleric of committing "crimes against humanity" during his decade overseeing hundreds of executions as the head of Iran's Justice Ministry.
Shahroudi was born in Iraq and moved to Iran after the revolution. He is 69 years old.
