Amin close to death

IDI AMIN DADA, the ex-Ugandan president and one of Africa's most notorious dictators, is in a coma and close to death in a Saudi Arabian hospital, sources at the hospital said yesterday.

Amin was admitted to the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah on Friday. "His situation is very bad, we don't expect him to last until tomorrow," said a hospital official.

Amin has been in coma since his

admission and is in the intensive care unit on an artificial respirator. Three of his sons were by their unconscious father's bedside yesterday. Hospital sources said Amin has been suffering from high blood pressure and his health condition was deteriorating.

In Uganda, the independent Sunday Monitor newspaper reported that the 80-year-old Amin, who seized power in 1971 and was ousted in 1979, has been undergoing treatment for the past three months for hypertension and general fatigue. The paper said Nalongo Madina Amin ("Amin's favourite wife") said two of Amin's sons were with him at a Saudi hospital and had confirmed to her that he had fallen into a coma.

Madina told The Sunday Monitor that she had approached Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni some time ago and asked that Amin be allowed to return to Uganda to die, but was told the former dictator would have to "answer for his sins".

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where Museveni was attending a meeting on Burundi, his press assistant, Oonapito Ekonioloit, said Amin was in Saudi Arabia on his own accord and that his relatives "are free to bring him back to Uganda".

"Everyone knows he has a past. If he has any case to answer, it will be dealt with according to the law," said Ekonioloit. "He's a free citizen. It's a private matter between Amin and his family whether they want to bring him back alive or dead," he said.

Amin, who served in the British colonial King's African Rifles and saw action in World War II in Burma, was a well-regarded officer at the time of Uganda's independence from Britain in 1962. He rose to chief of staff of Uganda's army and air force in 1966.

He fell out with prime minister and president Milton Obote and ousted him on January 25, 1971 when the head of state was attending an African summit.

Although initially popular, Amin grew increasingly authoritarian, violent and subject to mood swings.

It is estimated that more than 200,000 Ugandans were tortured and murdered during his regime that ended on April 11, 1979, when he was ousted by a combined force of Ugandan exiles, including Museveni, and the Tanzanian army.