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Bangladeshi President Zillur Rahman, a veteran ruling party politician named to the largely ceremonial post in 2009, died yesterday in a Singapore hospital, officials said. He was 84.
Rahman, who was suffering from kidney and respiratory problems, was flown to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital by air ambulance on March 10 after his conditions worsened.
The nation declared three days of mourning after his death in Singapore and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed expressed her "profound shock" and lamented "an irreparable loss to the country and its people".
Rahman's secretary Shafiul Alam said the close aide of the nation's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been suffering from "old age complications". He leaves behind a son, who is a lawmaker, and two daughters.

The body of the former deputy chief of the ruling Awami League would be flown back to the country today, he said, with his funeral and burial taking place tomorrow afternoon.
In response to his death, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs last night expressed its "profound sadness".
"The ministry would like to extend its deepest condolences to the bereaved family, the government of Bangladesh and the people of Bangladesh during this time of national mourning."

	The ministry would like to extend its deepest condolences to the bereaved family, the government of Bangladesh and the people of Bangladesh during this time of national mourning
It added that it was working with the High Commission of Bangladesh for Rahman's body to be flown back home.
A lawyer by profession and one of the longest-serving lawmakers for the country - who first joined parliament in 1973 - Rahman earlier made his name as an activist who pushed for Bangladesh to break free from Pakistani rule.
As a student leader and political organiser he played an active role in the Language Movement in 1952 for the establishment of Bengali as a state language, a crucial campaign that helped cement Bangladeshi statehood.
Authorities in what was then East Pakistan sentenced him to twenty years of imprisonment in absentia during the independence war of 1971 and confiscated all his properties.
After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family in 1975, he was also put behind bars for four years by the military government which overthrew the elected government.
A third period of detention followed in 1986.
He later played a key role in keeping the party united after Hasina was arrested by a military-backed government in 2007.
The Awami League won by a landslide in the December 2008 elections and Zillur Rahman became a member of parliament for the sixth time. He became president in February of 2009.
Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman, also a politician, died in August, 2004 after she was critically injured in a grenade attack on an Awami League party rally that also killed 20 other people.
The president's death comes amid some of the worst political violence in post-independence Bangladesh, which has seen 86 people killed since January.
The trigger for the unrest has been a war-crimes tribunal that has begun sentencing people over atrocities committed during the 1971 independence war. The political opposition says it is being targeted by the tribunal.
Hasina initiated the trials in 2010 and three verdicts have been handed down. Ten of the defendants convicted or on trial are from Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami, while two others belong to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


Bangladesh mourns death of president Zillur Rahman

President Zillur Rahman in Dhaka in 2011. Photo: EPA

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Zillur Rahman dies in Singapore hospital at 84, after political career going back to first battles for Bangladeshi independence in 1950s


Bangladeshi President Zillur Rahman, a veteran ruling party politician named to the largely ceremonial post in 2009, died yesterday in a Singapore hospital, officials said. He was 84. Rahman, who was suffering from kidney and respiratory problems, was flown to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital by air ambulance on March 10 after his conditions worsened.


Bangladesh mourns death of president Zillur Rahman

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Zillur Rahman dies in Singapore hospital at 84, after political career going back to first battles for Bangladeshi independence in 1950s

Zillur Rahman dies in Singapore hospital at 84, after political career going back to first battles for Bangladeshi independence in 1950s