TEHRAN, July 30: The conservative head of an Iranian clerical body which has the power to appoint and dismiss the country's supreme leader died on Monday after a period of illness, Iranian media said.

Ayatollah Ali Meshkini headed the 86-member Assembly of Experts, an elected body of senior Shi'ite Muslim theologians which chooses Iran's supreme leader, supervises his work and can even sack him.

The official IRNA news agency said Meshkini, who was 86, had suffered from lung disease. The assembly appointed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader in 1989, following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but is not known to have intervened in any major political decisions since then. Meshkini, who was arrested and sent into exile during the rule of the US-backed shah, was taken to hospital in Tehran on July 19.—Reuters