AMIN A COMA; Dictator who slaughtered thousands lies near death.

Byline: STEPHEN WHITE

FORMER Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was clinging to life in a coma last night.

The 78-year-old exile, who has high blood pressure, was in intensive care on an artificial respiratory machine with his condition deteriorating.

His favourite wife Nalongo Madina and two of his sons were at his bedside. Amin, under whose brutal rule an estimated 200,000 people were killed and tortured, has been treated for three months for hypertension and fatigue.

He was admitted unconscious to the King Faisal Hospital, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on Friday.

Nalongo has appealed to Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni for her husband to be allowed to die in his homeland. But she was told Amin would have to "answer for his sins".

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

Later, he fell out with Prime Minister and President Milton Obote.

In January, 1971, when Obote was at an African summit, Amin staged a coup and established a military dictatorship.

His most controversial early move, which caused a humanitarian crisis, was to expel up to 70,000 Ugandan Asians holding British passports.

Although initially popular, he became increasingly authoritarian and violent ordering the slaughter of thousands of his opponents.

He was even rumoured to have dined with the severed heads of his victims at his table.

In April 1979 the tyrant was ousted by a combined force of Ugandan exiles - including Museveni - and the Tanzanian army.

Amin, a Muslim, went into exile first in Libya, then Iraq. He finally settled in Saudi Arabia on the condition he stay out of politics.

There, he spent his time playing golf, watching black and white films in his private villa and sipping mint tea in the lobbies of Saudi Arabian luxury hotels.

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DICTATOR: Idi Amin