Baghdad: Iraqi political and academic circles mourned the passing of former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Sami Al-Muzaffar, who died today, Thursday, in one of the hospitals in Baghdad’s Medical City after a battle with illness.

According to National Iraqi News Agency, Professor Dr. Sami Al-Muzaffar served as Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Minister of Education between 2004 and 2005, during the first National Assembly and the government of then-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. He was born in 1940 in Basra.