JEDDAH, Aug 16: Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dicta-tor, died in a hospital in this Saudi Red Sea port city on Saturday.

“Mr Idi Amin died at around 8:00 am (10:00 PST). His condition worsened on Friday and he breathed his last on Saturday morning at the intensive care unit,” an official at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital told AFP.

“Arrangements are underway to prepare the body for burial possibly in Uganda,” added the official, who requested anonymity.

Idi Amin was believed to be 78, although there is disagreement over his date of birth.

He was admitted to the hospital on July 18 and went into a coma. Hospital sources said he came out of the coma six days later but had remained in intensive care under close supervision.

A member of Amin’s family, reached by telephone in the Ugandan capital, confirmed he had died on Saturday morning at the hospital.

The hospital had refused to specify Amin’s illness or provide details about his condition, at the request of family members who had been living with him in Saudi Arabia in obscurity for more than 20 years.

As armed forces chief, Amin staged a coup on January 25, 1971 when President Milton Obote was out of the country and proclaimed himself head of state.

“Big Daddy,” as he became known, began by killing Obote loyalists, but the trouble quickly spread from the barracks to the entire country, and included an Anglican archbishop, a chief justice and several cabinet ministers.

Amin drove out of the country about 80,000 Ugandans of Asian orogon, saying God had commanded him to do so in a dream.He distributed their vast businesses to his cronies, who mismanaged them, leading to an meltdown.

Amin never returned to his country since he was ousted by Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles on April 11, 1979.

Human rights group Amnesty International said the death of the former dictator after two decades of comfortable exile underlined the need for a system that could bring tyrants to justice for crimes against humanity.

“Amin’s death is a sad comment on the international community’s inability to hold leaders accountable for gross human rights abuses,” Amnesty spokesman George Ngwa said in a statement issued in London.

On Amin’s possible burial in Uganda, media adviser to President Yoweri Museveni, John Nagenda, said the government would have no objection, if the family decided to return his body.—AFP