Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died Sunday, according to multiple reports.

Rafsanjani, known as a pragmatist who served as president from 1989 to 1997, died of a heart attack, according to IRNA, Iran’s official news agency.

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“Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the expediency discernment council, after a lifetime of ceaseless endeavors towards the path of Islam and the revolution, left this world,” said the ticker on Iran’s Channel One, according to the New York Times.

Rafsanjani previously served as an aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran.