Leading Shia in Saddam regime dies in exile

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=middleeast&xfile=data/middleeast/2007/April/middleeast_April148.xml


DAMASCUS - Onetime Iraqi information minister Saad Kassem Hammudi, one of the leading Shias in Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Arab-dominated regime, has died in exile in Damascus, official media said on Sunday.

He died of a heart attack on Saturday and was buried on Sunday in the Najha cemetery south of the Syrian capital, the official SANA news agency said.

Scion of a family of Shia clerics, Hammudi was a founding member of Saddam’s now disbanded Baath party, joining it before the growing domination of Sunnis loyal to the now executed strongman overshadowed the party’s secular, non-sectarian ideology.