Paul Rose, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte during the October Crisis of 1970, died this morning of a heart attack at the age of 69.

He was a member of the Chenier cell of the FLQ which took part in the kidnapping of Laporte from outside his St. Lambert home on Oct. 10, 1970. He was held at a home a few blocks away and found strangled to death exactly a week later at the St. Hubert military base, in the trunk of the car used in the kidnapping.

He was sentenced to life in prison for the crime before being freed on parole in 1982.

Following his time in prison, he served as a writer, a special counsellor to the CSN, and in the 1990s, as leader of the left-wing Parti de la Democratie Socialiste, an early forerunner of today's Quebec Solidaire.