Former Pakistan president Musharraf ill, recovery not possible: family

FORMER Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf, who has been at a hospital in the United Arab Emirates for three weeks, is at a stage where “recovery is not possible and organs are malfunctioning”, his family announced on his Twitter handle on Friday (10).

“He is not on the ventilator. Has been hospitalized for the last 3 weeks due to a complication of his ailment (Amyloidosis). Going through a difficult stage where recovery is not possible and organs are malfunctioning. Pray for ease in his daily living,” the tweet said about the 78-year-old India-born who had ruled Pakistan from the late 1990s to the late 2000s.

Earlier in the day, Ifzaal Siddique, president of Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), Overseas, said in a tweet, “Dear All, General Pervez Musharraf is at home bit ill though but fully alert as usual, please don’t listen to fake news. Just pray for his good health, Ameen.”

The social media was abuzz with news that Musharraf had passed away.

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Fawad Chaudhry, one of the former president’s close aides and Pakistan’s former information minister, confirmed the latter’s stay in hospital to Press Trust of India. Chaudhry, who served under the Imran Khan government, was once a media spokesperson for Musharraf.

He said that Musharraf was on ventilator.

“I have just spoken to Gen Musharraf’s son Bilal in Dubai who confirmed that he (Musharraf) is on ventilator,” Chaudhry said.

Musharraf, who had toppled the democratically elected government of former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 and dominated the country’s politics for the next decade, was earlier admitted to a hospital in Dubai after developing “heart- and blood pressure-related" complications, media reports said.

In 2018, there were reports of him suffering from an unspecified ailment and could not return to Pakistan or even attend court hearings against him.

“Musharraf had a fracture in his spine, for which he got treated in the USA. But nowadays he is being treated for a separate ailment. For this, he has to go to London after every three months,” Muhammad Amjad, a former chairman of APML said.

Musharraf went back to Pakistan in 2013 to take part in that year’s general election, but was disqualified after the country's high courts issued arrest warrants for him for his alleged involvement in the assassinations of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 and Benazir Bhutto in 2007

When Sharif was re-elected as the prime minister in 2013, he initiated high treason charges against the former army general for implementing emergency rule and suspending the country’s constitution in 2007.

The case against Musharraf continued after Sharif's removal from office in 2017, the same year when he was declared an "absconder" in the Bhutto assassination case by virtue of moving to the UAE. In 2019, Musharraf was sentenced to death in absentia for the treason charges but the death sentence was later annulled by the Lahore high court.