PASSINGS

Here are some of the world figures who died in 1991:

Ex-Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, 46, was assassinated in May as he stooped to receive flowers from a Sri Lankan Tamil separatist posing as an admirer during a rural campaign stop. The death of Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, prompted rioting and postponed elections.

The widow of the late Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung--Jiang Qing--committed suicide in May, according to a government statement that was delayed almost a month. Jiang, 77, was among the most fiery of radical leftists, an intellectual author of the bloody Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976.

Rufino Tamayo, Mexico’s preeminent painter and the last great muralist of the early century, died in June at the age of 91. Tamayo, who was more politically conservative than fellow muralists Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros, emphasized modernist techniques.

Soichiro Honda, an auto mechanic who started in business by attaching recycled war engines to bicycles, died in Tokyo in August at 84. At his death, the Honda Motor Co. was Japan’s fourth-largest car-maker and the world’s largest manufacturer of motorized two-wheelers.

Former Gestapo boss Klaus Barbie, known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” died in custody in September at age 77. He was judged responsible for the deportations of hundreds of French Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II and was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity.

Despite heavy security, former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar was found stabbed to death in Paris in August. An outspoken foe of Tehran’s current Islamic government, he had lived in exile in Paris since the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. French investigators trace the crime to a low-level Iranian official.