Pakistan’s former president and military ruler General Pervez Musharraf died in Dubai after a prolonged illness at Dubai American Hospital. He was 79 years old.
Shazia Siraj, spokesperson for Pakistan’s consulate in Dubai and embassy in Abu Dhabi confirmed the news to the media.
Musharraf died while reportedly receiving treatment at a Dubai hospital for amyloidosis, a rare disease.
Family intends to repatriate body to Pakistan
UAE media said that the Consulate General of Pakistan in Dubai has issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) as Musharraf’s family intends to repatriate his body to Pakistan.
“We are in touch with the family and the consulate will facilitate in whatever way it can, the consulate has issued the no objection certificate,” Hassan Afzal Khan, Consul-General at the Pakistan Consulate, Dubai, told Khaleej Times.
However, Musharraf’s mother Zareen, who died in January 2021, was buried in Dubai.
Tributes and condolences
Senior Pakistani military officials expressed their “heartfelt condolences” on the “sad demise of General Pervez Musharraf.”
“May Allah bless the departed soul and give strength to the bereaved family,” reads the statement by Pakistan Army.
Tributes and messages of condolences have poured in from Pakistani politicians.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his “condolences and sympathy to the family” of the former leader in a statement Sunday.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, led by former prime minister Imran Khan, said: “Our prayers and condolences go to his family and we share their grief.”
The chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, also expressed his “deep sorrow and grief”.
Brief profile of Pervez Musharraf
Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 after then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif tried to dismiss him. Musharraf ruled as army chief until 2007 and then as president.
He stepped down as president also in 2008 over fears of being impeached. He subsequently left the country but returned in 2013 with the hope of regaining power as a civilian. However, he encountered a slew of criminal charges, and within a year, was barred for life from running for public office.
In 2016, after a travel ban was lifted, Musharraf left for Dubai to seek medical treatment and has since remained there. In 2019, a court indicted him on treason charges in absentia, which he denied, and eventually sentenced him to death. But the ruling was later overturned by a higher court.
U.S. War on Terror
Pakistan under Musharraf joined America’s launched war on terror. After 9/11, the then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Musharraf that Pakistan would either be “with us or against us.”
Musharraf said another American official threatened to bomb Pakistan ”back into the Stone Age” if it chose the latter. Musharraf chose the former. A month later, he stood by then-President George W. Bush at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to declare Pakistan’s unwavering support to fight with the United States against “terrorism in all its forms wherever it exists.”
Militants tried to assassinate him twice in 2003 by targeting his convoy, first with a bomb planted on a bridge and then with car bombs. “I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate have always smiled on me,” Musharraf once wrote. “I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.”