Michael Chamberlain, whose daughter Azaria was killed by a dingo in outback Australia in 1982, an incident which was the subject of an award-winning Hollywood film, has died in an Australian hospital at the age of 72.

Chamberlain and his former wife Lindy were the focus of one of Australia's most controversial and high profile legal cases, when the authorities disbelieves their story and charged the pair with the murder of their two-month-old daughter Azaria.

The case achieved worldwide fame after Lindy famously declared "a dingo ate the baby", but the pair was found guilty -- Lindy for murder and Michael for being an accessory -- in 1982.

Lindy was imprisoned for three years before a royal commission into the case found issues with the forensic evidence used in the case, while between 1980 and 1995, three inquests were held, with the first being found a dingo indeed took Azaria, the second being resulted in the conviction, while the third being inconclusive.

It wasn't until 2012, when a fourth inquest was called, that Michael and Lindy Chamberlain were finally exonerated and pardoned by the Norther Territory coroner.

Following the coroner's decision, Michael Chamberlain who had studied a PhD in education in 2002, said the "battle to get to the legal truth" had taken "too long".

"However, I am here to tell you that you can get justice even when you think that all is lost," he said.

The case was turned into the Hollywood drama A Cry in the Dark in 1988, with Meryl Streep and Sam Neill starring as the Chamberlains. Streep was nominated as Best Actress at the Academy Awards but untimately lost to Jodie Foster.

Michael and Lindy separated in 1990, with Michael marrying his second wife Ingrid Berger in 1994.

Source :Xinhua