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Former Iranian President Bani-Sadr passes away in Paris  

Former Iranian President Bani-Sadr passes away in Paris  

Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (file photo).

The Iran's first president after the 1979 Islamic revolution, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, passed away at the age of 88 on Saturday.

On Bani-Sadr's official website, the leader died at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris following a long illness, his wife and children said.

Bani-Sadr had emerged from obscurity to become Iran's first president with the help of the Islamic clergy in February 1980.

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After a power struggle with radical clerics, the leader fled the following year to France, where he spent the rest of his life.

While announcing the death, the family said on his website that Bani-Sadr had "defended freedom in the face of new tyranny and oppression in the name of religion".

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His family would like him to be buried in Versailles, the Paris suburb where he lived during his exile, his longstanding assistant, Jamaledin Paknejad, told Reuters.

In an interview with Reuters, the former president said that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had betrayed the principles of the revolution after sweeping to power in 1979, adding this had left a "very bitter" taste among some of those who had returned with him to Tehran in triumph.

(With inputs from agencies)