Hard-line Iran cleric Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi dies at 85

Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, a distinguished hard-liner and supporter of the nation’s ex-president, died on Friday, the state-run IRNA information company reported. He was 85.
The cleric was referred to as a backer of former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who questioned the Holocaust and claimed there have been no gays or lesbians in Iran. Ahmadinejad was succeeded in 2013 by Hassan Rouhani, a relative average.
The report stated Yazdi had not too long ago been in hospital for a month on account of an unspecified gastrointestinal sickness however was then launched to proceed therapy at house within the Iranian holy metropolis of Qom, which is house to main Shiite seminaries. Just a few days in the past, he took a flip for the more serious and was transferred to a hospital within the capital, Tehran, IRNA stated.
No additional particulars had been offered.

He was additionally a senior member of the nation’s Assembly of Experts, an all-clerical physique that can sometime select the successor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Funeral preparations weren’t instantly identified. Most Iranian clerics are buried in Qom.