Within Burma's secretive military circles, Lieutenant-General Soe Win was known as loyal and likeable. Beyond it, he was known for brutality. He earned the nickname Butcher of Depayin for masterminding an attack in 2003 on a motorcade of pro-democracy supporters by civilian mobs armed with iron and bamboo rods, killing dozens.

As a reward he was promoted the following year to Prime Minister, replacing a general who had made the mistake of suggesting political reforms. For that, the disgraced general was sentenced to 44 years' imprisonment on corruption charges. Soe Win was now the fourth most senior member of the ruling junta, and he used his increased power to oppose any accommodation with the democracy movement.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader, escaped injury in the 2003 attack in the northern town of Depayin in a region that had earlier been directly under Soe Win's control. Pro-democracy activists claimed that he toured the area personally to rally members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a pro-government militia, for the attack.

Immediately afterwards Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was jailed and then placed back under house arrest at her lakeside home in Rangoon, where she remains. She has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.

The attack reinforced Soe Win's reputation as a hardliner, opposed even to talking to the pro-democracy movement. He has been quoted as saying that the Army would never negotiate with Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

He first achieved notoriety as one of the officers who brutally suppressed a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, in which about 3,000 protesters are believed to have died, when commanding troops around Rangoon University, a focus for demonstrations. During the same uprising he also gave orders to open fire on a crowd of protesters in front of Rangoon General Hospital. Later that year the current military regime seized control.

By the early 1990s Soe Win had reached the rank of colonel. His brutal no-nonsense tactics impressed the junta's leaders and his eventual rise to the ruling inner circle seemed inevitable. It happened immediately after the Depayin massacre, when he was appointed Secretary-2 and later the same year rose to Secretary-1.

With typical secrecy the junta has allowed little to be known of Soe Win's past before he rose to prominence as an Air Force chief and a tactical operations commander of the North-western Regional Command. All that is known of his education is that he was a graduate of the Defence Services Academy. The place and exact date of his birth were never disclosed.

Four years after becoming a member of the junta, then known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, in 1997, Soe Win was named Air Defence General of the War Office. His status was assured when he accompanied Senior General Than Shwe on state visits to Vietnam and China soon after the Depayin massacre, known by pro-democracy activists as Black Friday. The two men agreed on what they called “nation-building projects,” which included the construction of dams, roads and bridges. Soe Win personally oversaw hydroelectric dam, railway and road projects and served on a series of military committees, earning him the reputation of a man capable of putting plans into action. His promotion to the highest ranks of the junta by General Than Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and Development Council — successor to SLORC — was clearly a question of time. His influence was beyond doubt when he signed orders dismissing Win Aung, the Foreign Minister, and his deputy in September 2003.

Soe Win was always presented on state media as a stern-faced man who stood conspicuously taller than most of the generals around him. He last appeared prominently on state television in February when it was reported that he had warned the nation's judges against corruption.

He effectively ceased to be Prime Minister in May because of failing health, when an acting Prime Minister was appointed. Although the incumbent of the post is inevitably a powerful figure, the role of the Prime Minister is largely ceremonial. Soe Win's death will do nothing to soften the junta's ruthless treatment of opponents, although it will focus the generals' minds on the fact that many of them are elderly and ill, and that the end of this generation of dictators is nearing.

Soe Win was a devout Buddhist and waged a sometimes brutal campaign against Chin Christians when, as commander of the north-western region, he was in charge of Chin state. Such actions, however, were never reported on the state media, which preferred to show him visiting pig farms or donating money to hospitals.

Soe Win had for six months been secretly receiving treatment at Singapore General Hospital for leukaemia. His twin brother died 11 days before him.

He returned to Burma shortly before his death and went directly to Mingalardon Military Hospital on the outskirts of Rangoon, where he died. His death marks the loss of another staunch loyalist of Senior General Than Shwe, aged 73, the junta's ailing leader, who has also received medical attention in Singapore.

He is survived by his wife, and by a son and daughter.

Lieutenant-General Soe Win, Prime Minister of Burma, died of leukaemia on October 12, 2007, aged 59