ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf wants to travel abroad for heart surgery requiring special equipment not available at home, legal sources said yesterday quoting from a new medical report.
Musharraf faces treason charges dating back to his 1999-2008 rule but has not shown up for any hearings of a special tribunal due to security fears and lately a heart complaint.
The 70-year-old former army chief has been in a military hospital since falling ill while travelling to the tribunal on January 2.
An earlier diagnosis from the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, where Musharraf is being treated, said he was suffering coronary artery disease and his lawyers have suggested he should be treated abroad.
The full report was not released but a legal source who has read it shared some of its contents with reporters.
The source said that in the report, Musharraf said he needed “special equipment for his heart surgery which is only available abroad”.
The earlier report recommended angiography to fully establish the severity of Musharraf’s condition and whether bypass surgery was needed, the source added.
“Angiography is a diagnostic process but it may result into main coronary surgery,” the source said about the content of the new report.
“General Musharraf wants that the surgery should be done by a hospital which has all the equipment.”
There have been rumours Musharraf’s ill-health would be used as a face-saving way to get him out of the country before the trial gets fully under way.
This would avoid a potentially destabilising clash between the government, which brought the charges, and the powerful military.
AFP
