Posted on 08/10/2003 10:42:04 AM PDT by HAL9000
JEDDAH, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Former dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, has received death threats at a Saudi hospital where he has been critically ill for weeks, a medical source said on Sunday.Staff at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah got the threats by telephone on Saturday, prompting mangers to post a permanent guard in Amin's room and another at the entrance to intensive care, the source said.
"Security measures were dramatically increased in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital where Idi Amin is staying as a result of several death threats," the source said. He gave no details on the threats.
Sources said last week that Amin, one of Africa's bloodiest despots, was in a "near-death-condition", and the source told Reuters on Sunday he was now expected to die within days.
"Idi Amin's condition has deteriorated as sepsis has set in, compounding earlier multiple organ system failure. He is still hooked up to a life-support machine...(and) the prognosis is he will die within days rather than weeks," the source said.
Amin, in his late 70s, has been in exile, chiefly in Saudi Arabia, since his ouster from his East African homeland in 1979.
A man who expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, Amin was denounced inside and outside Africa for massacring tens of thousands of people -- some estimates say more than 100,000 -- under his despotic 1971-79 rule.
A former boxing champion, he came to power in a 1971 coup and his rule was characterised by eccentric behaviour and violent purges.
He was driven from power in 1979 by forces from neighbouring Tanzania and Ugandan exiles, and was given sanctuary by Saudi Arabia in the name of Islamic charity.
Amin, a Muslim, and has lived quietly in Jeddah on a government stipend with his four wives.
I wonder if they will try to bury his nasty carcass in Uganda.
Ya... from the Grim Reaper. And they're not threats, they're promises.
The imps are stoking the fires for ya, Idi.
" Mr. Amin, meet your new physician, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. "
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