'Clinical Death' or Not, Mubarak Got That Hospital Visit He Wanted

This article is from the archive of our partner .

We still aren't sure what or who to believe about the health of Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His lawyer now says yesterday's "clinical death" was just a bathroom fall, and it looks more and more like yesterday's drama was a great scheme to get Mubarak into a hospital and avoid his life sentence in prison. "We were surprised at what we can call a media mania in Egypt last night," Mubarak's lawyer, Mr. Abdel Razeq said on Wednesday in a New York Times report. Times reporters Kareem Fahim and David D. Kirkpatrick report that Razeq said Mubarak had a blood clot, fell in a prison bathroom. Whatever happened, Mubarak is now in stable condition at Maadi Armed Forces Hospital.

His lawyers said they were "open to sending Mr. Mubarak abroad for medical care out of the country as well, just he had traveled to Germany two years ago for intestinal surgery." This is a familiar refrain. His lawyers have been trying to get the former dictator transferred out of prison and into a hospital ever since a life sentence was handed down on June 5.

Still, there's no definitive word on what Mubarak's condition is. Razeq's account differs from another Mubarak laywer, Fareed El Deeb who told CNN yesterday that Mubarak was in a coma. And that account is way different than his previous the "clinically dead" report from state-run media MENA. Razeq's account also sounds remarkably better than what some Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) members told international news sources about Mubarak's health yesterday--which ranged from comatose to being in critical condition. And... well you get the picture: whatever Mubarak's health is, someone's lying. 

Earlier this month, Egyptians thought Mubarak's life sentence was too lenient, as thousands protested when Mubarak didn't get the death penalty. The thought that this latest episode might lead to Mubarak skipping off to Germany for treatments isn't sitting well with bloggers. And with all the Gordian Knot of contradictory informaton we're dealing with, it's not hard to believe their theories of how the government and military might be protecting the former dictator. Blogger Sarah Carr, who runs the Egypt-focused Inanities blog, believes that the military may be lying for Mubarak, while fellow blogger Mostafa Hussein believes that the state-run MENA news agency cooked up the lie to get the dictator out and into a cushy hotel room complete with a visit from his wife. 

For what it's worth, and consider what we've already mentioned as your grain of salt, security officials told the AP on Wednesday that Mubarak was off of life support and his organs were fine but still in a coma.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.