CAIRO — Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak is suffering from stomach cancer that is affecting his heart and brain.
Mubarak’s lawyer, Farid al Dib said, “he has a stomach cancer and the tumors are growing.” He told Al Jazeera the 83-year-old ex-president has had cancer since March 2010 but kept it a secret.
Al Dib said Mubarak’s cancer had spread to his stomach, causing severe repercussions on his heart and brain vessels, and he was periodically slipping into a coma.
Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades and was forced to step down last February following a mass uprising, is currently under detention in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
He was due to face charges along with his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, on Aug. 3 for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters last January and February.
The public prosecutor, who said May 31 that Mubarak was too ill to be moved from hospital to prison, declared at that time he suffered from “an irregular heartbeat which could lead to a sudden heart attack.”
In March 2010, Mubarak went to Germany for surgery, AFP reported. Doctors at the time said he had suffered from chronic calculus cholecystitis — an inflammation of the gall bladder accompanied by gall stones — and a duodenal polyp.
They said he also had a growth removed from his small intestine.