TEHRAN – On Friday, people and officials said their farewells to the late Ayatollah Seyyed Abdul Karim Mousavi Ardebili who passed away on Wednesday due to a heart failure.

President Hassan Rouhani as well as other senior officials and clerics took part in the funeral service for the prominent religious leader in the holy city of Qom.

Addressing reporters after the ceremony, Rouhani described Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili as a close companion of the late Imam Khomeini and also of the Supreme Leader.

Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili, the former Judiciary chief, passed away in Laleh hospital in Tehran.

Rouhani issued a statement on Wednesday, offering condolences over the death of the ayatollah and declared two days of mourning.

Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili was born on 28 January 1926 in Ardabil, northwestern Iran. Raised in a clerical family, he travelled to Qom and Najaf to pursue his interest in Islamic studies.

After the Islamic Revolution, he was appointed the chief prosecutor and after Ayatollah Beheshti was martyred in a terrorist attack in 1982, he was appointed the head of the judiciary.

In 1988, Ayatollah Mousavi Ardebili founded Mofid University in Qom.

After Imam Khomeini’s demise, he moved back to Qom to write and teach in the Islamic seminaries.

MH/PA