Zhang Chunqiao, a member of China’s notorious Gang of Four led by the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong, died of cancer last month, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday in the first official word in decades on a man previously thought by many to have been dead for years.

Zhang had been on medical parole since January 1998 and had died on April 21, Xinhua said without giving further details. He was 88.