Daily Times

KARACHI: An accountability court was informed on Saturday that Dr Asim Hussain had been experiencing lower back pain and needed hydrotherapy pending disc replacement surgery.

The eight-member medical board, constituted by the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), submitted its report to the Accountability Court VI’s Judge Saad Qureshi after examining the health of Dr Asim, a former federal petroleum minister and close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari.

The court adjourned the case till November 12 when it was informed that Dr Asim could not be produced before it as he had been admitted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre due to his serious health condition.

In the medical report, it was submitted that Dr Asim is frequently been admitted to the hospital for intractable lower back pain caused by accelerated degeneration of his lumbar spine. Physiotherapy is not producing significant benefit.

“He has continued to have severe symptoms of lower back pain with acute spasm and limited mobility.

He has been advised to restrict weight bearing and JPMC administration is requested to provide him a wheelchair,” it added. The board reiterated its advice for hydrotherapy pending the definitive disc replacement surgery.

The former federal minister is facing the charges of misusing his authority to get allotted land illegally, encroaching upon the state land for expansion of Dr Ziauddin Hospital, money laundering and receiving kickbacks.

Another charge related to unlawfully receiving commissions from fertilizers for an exploitative price hike.

He is also facing the charges of treating and harboring suspected terrorists at his hospital.

He had been alleged to have deprived the national exchequer of Rs462.5bn from 2010 to 2013, including Rs450bn through the fertilizer scam, Rs9.5bn through land fraud and Rs3bn through money laundering.

Other co-accused, who have been nominated in the reference, are former petroleum secretary Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, administrator of Ziauddin Medical Centre, Dubai Abdul Hameed, former directors of the Karachi Development Authority Syed Athar Hussain and Masod Haider and Karachi Dock Labour Board’s former chief executive officer Safdar Hussain.