JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, August 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator whose brutal reign in the 1970s left hundreds of thousands dead in one of Africa's bloodiest episodes, died in a hospital in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah Saturday, August 16.

"Mr. Idi Amin died at around 8:00 am (0500 GMT). His condition worsened Friday and he breathed his last today (Saturday) morning at the intensive care unit," an official at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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

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.

In Kampala, John Nagenda, media advisor to President Yoweri Museveni confirmed the former dictator had died in Saudi Arabia. "Amin has paid for his sins," he said.

A member of Amin's family, reached by telephone in the Ugandan capital, also confirmed he had died 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.

Amnesty Irked

For its part, human rights pressure group Amnesty International said Saturday that the death of Amin - after two decades of comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia - 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.

"The fact that Idi Amin was able to evade justice for over two decades underlines the present need for an international justice system that can hold people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and other grave human rights abuses."

Amin was believed responsible for the death of 300,000 of his countrymen during his brutal eight-year rule, from 1971 to 79.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London told AFP said the British government in the 1970s and the country's Labor and Conservative parties had "always put their own view about Amin's regime clearly on the record".

Britain is the former colonial power under which Amin rose through the army to officer status.

The United Nations has now set up the International Criminal Court to deal with cases of genocide and crimes against humanity but it could not have tried Amin since its remit only goes back to July 2002.

No Tears

His successor as Ugandan President, Godfrey Binaisa, told AFP Saturday that he would shed no tears over the death of the brutal military ruler.

"I don't regret his passing away," Binaisa told AFP by telephone, but sarcastically quipped: "I sympathize with his family members. I send my condolences to his wife Madina and family."

Binaisa, who became President after Amin was overthrown by a combined force of Tanzania troops and Ugandan exiles in 1979, said he wanted Amin to be brought back to Uganda for burial.

"How about the several people he executed without trial? I cannot forget that and I don't think that the families of his victims will ever forget that era for the rest of their lives," Binaisa said.

"People had forgotten so easily," Binaisa pointed out when told some people were weeping in sympathy with Amin's death.

Binaisa's reaction to Amin's death contrasted with that of the down-trodden, ordinary citizens of Kampala, many of whom had nothing but praise for the "Big Daddy", as the West preferred to call him.

Safina Nansubuga, a 50-year-old news vendor in Kampala, shed tears at the news, saying that most of those killed by Amin's henchmen involved themselves in subversion against his regime.

"At least I was here and saw what he did to the country," she said.

Amin's son, Ali, who is a local politician, confirmed his father's death when reached by telephone in Kampala, but said it was not yet known whether the body would be brought back home for burial.

Quiet, Comfortable Life In Exile

Amin had been living in luxury in Saudi Arabia for around two decades.

The former despot arrived in the kingdom as a political refugee in the mid-1980s after spending a few years in Libya and Iraq following his overthrow at the hands of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels in 1979.

He lived in almost total obscurity. Very little was known about his life, the number of his children and family accompanying him, and his sources of income.

But Jeddah residents say Amin lived in a villa rented for him by the government of Saudi Arabia in the posh Al-Hamra district overlooking the Red Sea.

Treating him under political asylum rules, the Riyadh government was paying him an undisclosed amount as a monthly stipend, while a number of his children worked in ordinary jobs in the oil-rich kingdom.

He was rarely interviewed by the Saudi press, but in an interview a few years ago with Uganda's Sunday Vision, Amin said he was at peace with himself and that his only passion was Islam.

"I am leading a quiet life and committed to my religion, Islam, and Allah. I don't have problems with anyone," Amin told the newspaper.

Amin claimed that, "unlike some African heads of state", he did not flee Uganda with state funds.

"But I am satisfied with what I am getting and even paying school fees for a number of my orphaned relatives in Uganda, and helping needy people," he said.

His pastimes included reciting Qur’an, swimming, fishing in the Red Sea, reading and watching television, particularly news programs, he said.

Amin also enjoyed playing his accordion and singing songs from his days as a soldier in the King's African Rifles, the African battalion of British troops during World War II.

He also revealed that he was still getting his favorite Ugandan foodstuffs flown to him, including cassava flour, fresh cassava, millet flour and matoke (green bananas).

• Click For Amin’s Life In Brief