After a protracted illness, a former Pakistani military dictator passed away in a hospital in Dubai.
According to military officials who spoke with Al Jazeera on Sunday, the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, passed away in a Dubai hospital after a protracted illness. He was 79.
After taking control in a non-lethal coup in 1999, Musharraf, a four-star general, controlled Pakistan for almost ten years. The former general had a rare condition called amyloidosis, which damages the organs. He had been bedridden and wheelchair-bound for a long time.
Senior military officers sent their “heartfelt condolences” on the passing of the former military leader in a succinct statement issued by the military’s communications wing.
“May Allah (God) bless the soul of the deceased and give the bereaved family strength.”
The last of a series of military coups that rocked Pakistan since its creation during the brutal 1947 partition of India saw Musharraf, a former special forces commando, take office as president. After the two leaders’ relationship had seriously deteriorated, he seized power by toppling Nawaz Sharif, the then-prime minister.
When Musharraf was returning from a trip to Sri Lanka, Sharif had the army chief fired and denied his jet permission to land in Pakistan even though it was running low on fuel. After landing, Musharraf assumed command after the army had taken over on the ground.
He oversaw the nuclear-armed state despite hostilities with India, the War on Terror, and a bloody armed insurgency that claimed thousands of lives. While potentially being impeached, he resigned in 2008.
In two consecutive general elections, Musharraf’s political party, which was founded in 2010, came up empty-handed. Following his treasonous charges in 2014, he made the decision to live in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates.
For the introduction of the emergency rule in 2007, a court condemned him to death in absentia in 2019, but the decision was later overturned.
Musharraf leaves behind his wife Sehba and two kids.
