Former Iraqi PM dead

A long-time ally of Saddam Hussein and one of the top Iraq Baath party leaders - who also served as a rare Shiite prime minister under Saddam – has died in a hospital in Germany, a Baath party spokesman and the party’s website say.

Saadoun Hammadi was released from a prison camp in Iraq in February 2004, after nine months in the custody of US troops. He left Iraq for medical treatment in Jordan, Lebanon and Germany, but settled in Qatar in early 2005.