Saadoun Hammadi | Ex-Iraqi official

Saadoun Hammadi, a longtime ally of Saddam Hussein and former Iraqi prime minister, has died, a Baath Party spokesman said.

Dr. Hammadi died Wednesday in a German hospital, party spokesman Hisham Odeh said. Dr. Hammadi, whose age was unavailable, was believed to be suffering from leukemia.

He was released from a prison camp in Iraq in February 2004, after nine months in the custody of U.S. troops. He left Iraq for medical treatment in Jordan, Lebanon and Germany, but settled in Qatar in early 2005.

Under Hussein, Dr. Hammadi served stints as foreign and oil minister, and was speaker of the Iraqi parliament until the 2003 U.S. invasion.

He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1956, and rose steadily through the Baath ranks after joining the party in his Shiite hometown of Karbala in the mid-1940s.

In his drive to retain power after Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, Hussein sought to portray himself as more politically flexible, installing Dr. Hammadi as prime minister in 1991.

Dr. Hammadi lasted only six months on the job, after Hussein fired him for advocating political reform. He publicly humiliated Dr. Hammadi by demoting him to the lowest party ranks.

Dr. Hammadi accepted the move without complaint, and was named parliament speaker five years later.