TEHRAN - Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Chairman Abdul Aziz al-Hakim died of lung cancer on Wednesday at a Tehran hospital.

Al-Hakim, who was 59, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007 and chose to receive chemotherapy treatment in Iran.
“He died a few minutes ago after battling cancer for 28 months,” his son Mohsen announced in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon.
Al-Hakim helped establish the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) in 1982, while he was in exile in Iran, as an opposition group to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. SCIRI changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) in May 2007.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim took over the leadership of the party in August 2003 after his brother Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was assassinated in Najaf.
Their father, Grand Ayatollah Mohsen al-Hakim, was a revered Shia spiritual leader between 1955 and 1970.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim never held any post in the Iraqi government which was established after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but he was still an important power broker.
Mourners will hold a funeral procession in Tehran on Thursday which will start in front of the Iraqi Embassy. Later his body will be transferred to Najaf for burial.
ISCI, which is the largest Shia grouping in Iraq, recently joined with followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to form a new political alliance to contest the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2010