Iron fist Suharto dies

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Indonesia's former president Suharto, who ruled with an iron fist for 32 years, has died at the age of 86. His rule was marked by rapid economic growth and political stability, but marred by massacres, human rights abuses and corruption.

The former general came to power after an abortive coup in 1965 that was officially blamed on the communist party. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of communist supporters were killed.

During the next three decades, Suharto built a strong central government under his New Order regime and introduced modernisation programmes which helped pull his country out of poverty and into relative prosperity.

But allegations of corruption, the Asian economic crisis and a fall in living standards sparked discontent and mass demonstrations which led to his downfall in 1998. In the years that followed attempts were made to try Suharto on charges of genocide and embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds. But in 2000, judges ruled he was unfit to stand trial.

Suharto and his family always denied the allegations but they remained a humiliation for him in his later years. Suharto was admitted to hospital with failing kidneys, heart and lungs earlier this month.

He died after slipping into a coma while in a hospital in Jakarta.