Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang in 'deep coma'

"Zhao Ziyang fell into a coma last night around 7:00pm (1100 GMT), he was rescued. But up until 6:30pm tonight, he was still in a coma," the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy quoted the relative as saying.

"His relative was crying on the phone and calling for people who care for him to pray for him as he might leave this world tonight," it said in a statement.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately comment Saturday and said it was looking into the matter. Telephone calls to his former aide Bao Tong were cut off immediately.

Zhao, who served as both the head of the Communist Party and China's prime minister for much of the 1980s, was ousted in 1989 after opposing the military crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy protests.

Following the bloody crackdown, in which hundreds if not thousands of unarmed students and citizens in Beijing were killed, a central government report squarely placed the blame for "counter-revolutionary" turmoil on Zhao.