PARIS - Michael Jackson's former producer and friend Tarak Ben Ammar on Friday denounced the late pop icon's doctors as "criminals" and "charlatans" who had taken advantage of his hypochondria.

"It's clear that the criminals in this affair are the doctors who treated him throughout his career, who destroyed his face, who gave him medicine to ease his pain," he told France's Europe 1 radio.

"He was a hypochondriac and one never really knew if he was sick because he had become surrounded by charlatan doctors who were billing him thousands and thousands of dollars worth of drugs, vitamins...," said the Tunisian producer.

He said he believed Jackson, who he said regularly took sleeping pills, had died of a heart attack "because he was taking all sorts of medicines," but he insisted that he had never seen him take illegal drugs.

"He ate badly, he didn't have a very healthy life, he couldn't do sport," said Ben Ammar.

Jackson, one of the most influential figures in pop history whose career included the highest-selling album of all-time, "Thriller," died Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest in Los Angeles.