Ishaq Dar doesn't have a serious heart problem: Report

Ishaq Dar doesn't have a serious heart problem: Report

ISLAMABAD - Accountability court Judge Mohammad Bashir in a detailed judgement said that the under-trial former finance minister does not seem to have a serious heart condition.

A day earlier, the judge had declared Ishaq Dar a proclaimed offender in a corruption reference initiated against him for possessing assets beyond his sources of income after he repeatedly failed to join the trial, remaining instead in London where he has reportedly been undergoing treatment for a heart-related ailment.

During yesterday's hearing in the accountability court, Dar's lawyer had submitted a new medical report and told the court told that his client was suffering from chest pain and a minor issue in a coronary artery and, therefore, could not appear in court.

The prosecution, however, had rejected Dar's lawyer's claims and declared that the former minister was not suffering from any medical issues because all of his medical reports presented in court differed from the other.

According to the judge's detailed order, the medical reports submitted before the court by Dar's lawyer do not seem to indicate that Dar is suffering from a serious cardiac ailment or that he is unfit to travel to Pakistan to appear before the courts.

"When all the medical reports are kept together, it seems that the reports of [Dr] Ranjit Deshpandi are procured with the purpose to linger on the case/reference," the judge has said.

The detailed order says that while one report by Dr Christopher Baker states that "there was no disease of ischaemia (heart disease)", another report, by Dr Deshpandi "is of a different opinion".

"The accused is not appearing before the court deliberately and is avoiding execution of warrant," the order says.