Tehran: Iran's former President and leading reformer Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died of heart disease on Sunday, local media reported. He was 82.

Rafsanjani, was hospitalised on Sunday due to a heart attack, but the medication attempts were not successful, Xinhua news agency reported.

Born in August 1934 in Iran's Bahreman, Rafsanjani was an influential politician, religious scholar and the confidant of Ayatollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.-Agency