BREAKING: Former US Secretary Of State, Colin Powell dies of COVID-19

By Dayo Badmus, 

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is dead.

Aged 84, the former military officer reportedly died of Covid-19 complications according to his family.

Late Powell was the first African-American secretary of state in 2001 under Republican George W Bush.

“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” a statement said.

“We want to thank the medical staff… for their caring treatment,” it added.

The statement said that he had been fully vaccinated against Covid.

George W Bush was among the first to pay tribute to “a family man and a friend” who “was such a favourite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice”.

Mr Powell, a moderate Republican who broke with his party to endorse Barack Obama in 2008, became a trusted military adviser to a number of leading US politicians.

He also saw service and was wounded in Vietnam, an experience that later helped define his own military and political strategies.

However, for many he is associated with the role he played in garnering support for the Iraq war, admitting a speech to the United Nations Security Council using faulty intelligence was “a blot” on his record.

“It was painful. It’s painful now,” Mr Powell told ABC News in 2005.

Tributes nevertheless poured in from Congress, where Democratic Senator Mark Warner praised Powell as “a patriot and a public servant,” while House Republican Peter Meijer described him as a rarity in the modern age: “a true soldier statesman.”

The family statement said Powell had been fully vaccinated.