October 16, 2003	Thursday	Sha'aban 19, 1424

NOUAKCHOTT, Oct 15: Mauritania’s first president Moktar Ould Daddah, who was the African desert nation’s first president following independence from France in 1960, has died in Paris, his brother said on Wednesday.

Ould Daddah, 79, died on Tuesday night in the French capital’s Val de Grace hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment for a long illness, his brother Ahmed Ould Daddah said.

His body is expected to be repatriated on Friday to Mauritania.—AFP