Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic's first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, has died at the age of 75.

The former dissident playwright, who suffered from prolonged ill-health, died on Sunday morning, his secretary Sabina Tancecova said.

As president, he presided over Czechoslovakia's transition to democracy and a free-market economy.

He oversaw its peaceful 1993 split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Havel first came to international fame as a dissident playwright in the 1970s through his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77.