JAKARTA - FORMER president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for over three decades, died on Sunday aged 86, his family and police said at a Jakarta hospital.

'Father has returned to God,' his eldest daughter, Siti Hariyanti 'Tutut' Rukmana, told reporters breaking down in tears. 'We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them ... may he be absolved of all his mistakes,' she said.

His death came more than three weeks after he was admitted to hospital with heart, lung and kidney problems, although he had surprised his doctors by his resilience despite being in a critical condition.

'Our former president HM Suharto has passed away around 13.10 (2.10pm Singapore time),' Dicky Sondani, the sub-district police chief, told reporters at the hospital.

'On behalf of this country, the people, the government and me personally, I would like to say our deep condolences on the death of Mr Haji Muhammad Suharto and I call on all the people of Indonesia to pray for him,' President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in comments broadcast on Elshinta radio.

Body leaves hospital
Suharto's body was taken from the hospital to his family home in the capital, television and radio said on Sunday.

Dignitaries including Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were expected to gather at the residence later Sunday to pay their respects, presidential spokesman told Andi Mallarangeng told ElShinta radio.

A minivan carrying the body left Pertamina hospital around 2.35pm (3.35pm Singapore time) amid a crush of reporters and police, reports said.

The van, weighed down by photographers hanging off the side trying to photograph Suharto's body, was escorted by two police cars, Metro TV reported.

Suharto was a ruthless dictator whose success presiding over huge economic progress was overshadowed by a legacy of bloodshed, human rights abuses and corruption on a colossal scale.

His tenure was marked by repression, from the killings of at least half a million communists and their sympathisers after the abortive coup that saw him seize power in 1966, to invading East Timor and quelling separatist movements in Aceh and Papua.

Although he steered this sprawling archipelago nation through an economic boom, making it notably self-sufficient in rice, billions of dollars ended up in the hands of friends and relatives as cronyism and corruption ran riot.

He eventually stepped down in in 1998 amid deadly riots and mass pro-democracy protests that were sparked by the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Opinion on his rule remains divided in Indonesia.

After leaving office he dropped out of public view and avoided criminal trial for massive corruption allegations by citing poor health. Doctors have said two strokes left him with some permanent brain damage.

Attempts to bring him to justice for alleged human rights atrocities in East Timor, which he invaded in 1975, as well as Aceh and Papua, have also been stymied by a lack of evidence.

'We could not have expected a leader for Indonesia worse than Suharto. But he was no Pol Pot,' said Asmara Nababan, head of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Jakarta.

A doctor who treated Suharto, Munawar, said: 'We have worked our best... God has decided otherwise. At around nine or ten, the condition of the heart and blood pressure remained up and down and we, to be truthful, were already begining to give up, because the condition of his brain, was already very serious...,' he told ElShinta radio.

'At 11, we already told the family that Suharto was dying, he said.

All of Suharto's six children had gathered on Sunday at his bedside, the former president's close aide, Moerdiono earlier said. -- AFP, REUTERS