Former information minister and Utusan Malaysia group chief editor Zainuddin Maidin, 79, passed away today after falling ill last month. 

According to Bernama, Zainuddin suffered a heart attack this evening while he was in the Serdang Hospital. 

He will be laid to rest at the Taman Melawati cemetery in Kuala Lumpur, tomorrow.

After a long career in the media, Zainuddin was appointed a senator in 1998, and later the deputy information minister in 2002. 

He was elected as the Merbok MP in 2004 and the Sungai Petani MP in 2008, during which time he served as the information minister for two years.

In recent years, however, he became a fierce critic of then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak while still retaining his Umno membership, often airing his views through his blog Zamkata.