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Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf passes away aged 79

Editor February 5, 2023

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Pakistan’s former president Pervez Musharaf passed away Sunday at a hospital in Dubai after a prolonged illness, news agency Reuters reported, quoting a spokesman of the Pakistani Embassy in UAE.

Musharraf, 79, had been undergoing treatment for an ailment at the hospital in Dubai, according to Pakistan media reports. The former military ruler had been suffering from the rare disease amyloidosis, caused by a build-up of an abnormal protein called amyloid in organs and tissues, a Dawn report said.

Musharraf, four-star general of the Pakistan Army, assumed power after a military takeover of the government in 1999. He served as the chief executive of Pakistan from October 1999 to November 2002. He went on to become Pakistan’s tenth president, serving from June 2001 to August 2008.

Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, was charged with high treason and given a death sentence in 2019 for suspending the Constitution. Later in 2020, the Lahore High Court declared all actions taken by the Nawaz Sharif government against Gen. Musharraf as “unconstitutional”, including the filing of a complaint on a high treason charge and the formation of a special court as well as its proceedings, leading to the abolition of the death penalty handed down to him by the trial court.

According to Reuters, the public relations wing of Pakistan’s military said that the chiefs of Pakistan’s army, navy and air force expressed condolences on his death.