BEIJING: Jiang Yanyong, a Chinese military doctor who revealed the full extent of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak and was later placed under house arrest for his political outspokenness, has died, a longtime acquaintance and a Hong Kong newspaper said on Tuesday.

Jiang died of pneumonia in China's capital Beijing last Saturday at age 91, according to human rights activist Hu Jia and the South China Morning Post.

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News of Jiang's death and even his name were censored within China, underscoring how he remained a politically sensitive figure, even late in life.

Jiang had been the chief surgeon at the People's Liberation Army's main 301 hospital in Beijing when the army fought its way through the city to end weeks of student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Square, causing the deaths of hundreds — possibly thousands — of civilians.

In April 2003, as the ruling Communist Party was suppressing news about the outbreak of the highly contagious SARS, Jiang wrote an 800-word letter stating there were many more cases of the disease than were being officially reported by the country's health minister.

Jiang emailed the letter to state broadcaster China Central Television and Hong Kong's Beijing-friendly Phoenix Channel, both of...

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