March 15 (Reuters) - An Iraqi appeals court upheld on Thursday a decision by the High Court to hang Saddam Hussein's former vice president for his role in the killing of 148 Shi'ite men in the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Here are some key facts on the former vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan.

* Born to a peasant family in the northern region of Mosul in the late 1930's, Ramadan worked in a bank after completing his secondary education. His political career took off in 1956 when he joined the Baath party, then banned by the British- backed monarchy.

* Ramadan and Saddam's deputy Izzat Ibrahim are the sole survivors of the plotters of the 1968 coup that returned the Baath party to power. Ramadan joined Iraq's powerful Revolutionary Command Council after the coup.

* In 1970, he headed a revolutionary court that executed 44 officers for plotting to overthrow the regime.

* Iraqi exiles accused him of crimes against humanity for his role in crushing a Shi'ite Muslim uprising in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and his alleged involvement in the killing of thousands of Kurds in the north in 1988.

* Ramadan often went abroad as Saddam's envoy and held many senior posts as his "enforcer". He led the paramilitary Popular Army, whose task was to protect the government. The force was disbanded in 1991 when he became vice-president.

* Ramadan proposed in 2002, before the start of the war with Iraq in 2003, that Saddam and U.S. President George W. Bush settle their differences in a duel with weapons of their choice.

* Ramadan was captured in Mosul in August 2003, by Iraqi Kurdish fighters and handed over to U.S. forces.

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