Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for US president eight times as a fringe candidate, has died at the age of 96 (KAREN BLEIER)

Washington (AFP) – Lyndon LaRouche, an eight-time candidate for US president whose conspiracy theories attracted a small but devoted following, has died at the age of 96.

LaRouche’s political action committee, LaRouche PAC, announced his death on their website.

LaRouche PAC said he died on Tuesday but did not say where or provide a cause of death. LaRouche had lived in recent years in a heavily fortified compound in Leesburg, Virginia.

LaRouche was a controversial and fringe figure in US politics for decades.

He first ran for the White House in 1976 as a candidate for the US Labor Party, which he founded.

He sought the Democratic Party nomination in every presidential election after that — through 2004 — but never even came close to securing it.

In 1988, LaRouche was convicted of mail fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

He ran for president from jail in 1992 and was released two years later.

LaRouche was born on September 8, 1922 in New Hampshire and grew up in a Quaker family. He was a conscientious objector in the early years of World War II but eventually joined the US Army and served in Asia.  

LaRouche’s political career saw him move over the years from the extreme left to the extreme right and carried the stamp of his own enigmatic ideology.

A self-taught economist, LaRouche was frequently accused of espousing anti-Semitic views — a charge he denied.

In speeches, he railed against the “British Empire” and the International Monetary Fund as tools of world domination.

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