Many senators maintain such relationships with former aides and close political associates.

The idea that a minister should have a political associate to assist him is not new.

Dozens of his former political associates there have also reportedly been dismissed.

He was reported to have been particularly depressed by the lack of support from his political associates.

The plan, which took hold last week, is to deny the General and his political associates the cash they need to run the country.

It has arrested men believed to be his political associates.

"He's a political associate and a friend and that will continue," he said.

"They don't do enough to keep themselves warm," he once told a political associate.

He was known to friends and political associates as "Bix."

But the Move tragedy turned him into, in the words of a political associate, "the man who couldn't laugh."