Pak court constitutes medical board to examine Zardari's health condition

A medical board to examine the health condition of former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari has been constituted by a court here which directed it to submit its report on Wednesday, according to media reports on Thursday.

Zardari, 64, who was arrested in June, approached the court on Tuesday seeking bail on medical grounds in two corruption cases.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday constituted the medical board comprising doctors of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and the personal physician of Zardari.

Hearing a petition seeking bail for Zardari on medical grounds, an IHC division bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Aamer Farooq sought a report from the medical board on December 11, when it will resume the hearing of the identical petitions filed by the former president as well as another bail petition filed by his sister Faryal Talpur in the fake bank accounts case.

The case is related to a massive money laundering scam that was previously being probed by the Federal Investigation Agency.

Advocate Farooq H Naek, the counsel for Zardari, argued before the court that the former president is suffering from multiple ailments, Dawn newspaper reported.

"He is a heart patient having three stents in his heart. He has a Holter Monitor attached to his chest so that the doctors are able to check and note variations in his heartbeat and blockages in his arteries. The petitioner is a patient of ischemic heart disease, which means that his heart may have inadequate supply of blood and oxygen, Naek said.

He argued that Zardari also "suffers from various other ailments such as cervical and lumbar spondylosis, sensory and motor neuropathy with impaired proprioception, the paper said.

On December 3, Zardari filed for bail on medical grounds in the two cases against him. The petition argues that the PPP co-chairperson should be given bail till the completion of the trial against him.

The National Accountability Bureau claims that Zardari Group, a company owned by Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur, received millions of rupees in suspicious transactions carried out through fake accounts in the money laundering case.

The Park Lane Estate, on the other hand, is a Karachi-based real estate firm. The anti-graft watchdog had initiated an inquiry against Zardari and his son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on charges that they illegally transferred forest land to the firm in collusion with some government officials. Bilawal was given a clean chit in the case on June 12.

Zardari, who was president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, was arrested in June after his bail application was rejected in connection to the fake bank accounts case.