PARIS (Reuters – Abolhassan Bania-Sadr, Iran’s first president, passed away Saturday at the age of 88.

Following a long battle with cancer, he passed away at Paris’ Pitie-Salpetriere. This was the last word from his family.

Bani-Sadr, a man who had been in obscurity, became Iran’s first President with the assistance of the Islamic clergy.

He fled France in the year following a fight with radical clergymen and spent his entire life in France.

On his website, Bani-Sadr’s family stated that he had “defended freedom face to new tyranny or oppression in religion”.

Paknejad Jamaledin (his longstanding assistant), told Reuters that his family wanted him to be buried at Versailles, Paris’ suburb where he had lived in exile.

The former president stated that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had made a pact with the principles of revolution in his 1979 victory. He also said this in a 2019 interview to Reuters.

Bani-Sadr said that he remembered 40 years before, in Paris. He was certain that Islamic revolution by the religious leader would lead to democracy after the Shah had died.

He said that they were certain that the religious leader would commit himself to the cause and that the entire set of principles would be implemented for the first times in history.