26 January 2019•Update: 26 January 2019
By Islamuddin Sajid
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
A new high-level medical board has been constituted to examine the health condition of jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, local media reported on Saturday.
The third medical board was constituted after doctors said Sharif has uncontrolled blood pressure, stage 3 chronic kidney disease, borderline raised troponin T level with history of ischemic heart disease, reported Dawn, a local daily.
Previously, a high-profile medical board had recommended to the authorities that Sharif should be shifted to hospital for “optimal treatment,” the daily added.
Sharif is currently serving a seven-year jail term in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore, a northeastern city of Pakistan.
Last year on Dec. 24, court in the capital Islamabad had sentenced Sharif to seven years in jail in a corruption case.
Last year in May, Sharif, 69, had also been sentenced to 10 years in jail in a corruption case stemming from the whistleblower Panama papers scandal by an accountability court, but the Islamabad High Court suspended the conviction in September.
His daughter and political heir Maryam Nawaz and Captain Mohammad Safdar had also been sentenced to seven years and one year in prison respectively in the same case. The two are also on bail.
In September 2017, directed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) accused Sharif of hiding assets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the name of his then-underage sons during his first two tenures as premier in the early 1990s.
In July 2017, the three-time prime minister was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court over the Panama Papers scandal, which also led to the filing of three corruption cases. Not long after, the top court also barred him from holding his party's leadership.
Sharif served as the premier from 1990 to 1992, 1997 to 1999, and 2013 to 2017, unable to complete even a single five-year term. His two previous governments were dismissed over corruption charges and through military coup in 1992 and 1999, respectively.
