Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who has lived in exile in Saudi Arabia since his 1979 downfall, is in hospital in a possibly critical coma, medical sources said this evening.
Sources at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah said Amin's family had been advised that the former president, accused of ordering the massacre of tens of thousands of his countrymen, may not survive.
They did not say when Amin went into coma or specify what had caused his condition.
Amin was denounced both inside and outside Africa for ordering the massacre of tens of thousands of people - some estimates put the figure at more than 100,000 - during his despotic 1971-79 rule in the central African state.
Driven from the country by Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles, Amin, a Muslim, was given sanctuary by Saudi Arabia in the name of Islamic charity, and has lived quietly in Jeddah on a government stipend with four wives.
Many Ugandans believe Amin would face trial if he sought to return. Although he is in effect exiled, Amin's relatives are free to come and go and several of his children live and work in the country.