ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ali Qazi Muhammad, the son of the great Kurdish leader Qazi Muhammad, passed away early Sunday in Germany after a battle with illness.

Ali was the only son of Qazi, a Kurdish leader who declared autonomy for the short-lived Kurdish state of the Republic of Mahabad in present-day Iran on January 22, 1946.

He was the leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), an armed Kurdish organization based in the Kurdistan Region but originally from the Kurdish areas of western Iran (Rojhelat). He had to step down as leader due to a battle with illness.

After having undergone heart surgery in recent years due to heart disease, Ali passed away aged 89 on Saturday in the German city of Bonn.

The Republic of Mahabad, declared by Ali's father, gained the support of Kurds from other Kurdish areas abroad, mainly Iraq, where former Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani joined the republic, along with thousands of Kurdish fighters.

Ali was only 13 when his father was hanged by the Pahlavi dynasty for treason on March 31, 1947, a little over a year after the republic's creation.

His sister, Efat Qazi, was killed by a letter bomb in Vasteras, Sweden in 1990. Her assassination is blamed on the Iranian government, but an investigation into the claims was closed due to a lack of evidence.[1]