Asif Ali Zardari, who is favored to win the Pakistani presidency in elections next week, filed medical records in a London courtroom that stated that he suffered from a range of mental illnesses, an account in the Financial Times said on Tuesday.
Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who served more than eight years in prison in Pakistan on corruption charges that were dismissed this year under an amnesty agreement, suffered from dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, the newspaper quoted the medical records as saying.
His lawyers used the diagnosis to argue that Zardari was unable to appear in court to challenge corruption charges by the Pakistani government alleging that he had bought a British country manor with ill-gotten gains.
The case was dropped in March, about the same time the corruption charges against him in Pakistan were dismissed, the newspaper reported.
In the court documents, a New York psychiatrist, Philip Saltiel, wrote that Zardari was suffering from “emotional instability” brought on by his lengthy incarceration, and that he suffered memory and concentration problems, the report said.
“I do not foresee any improvement in these issues for at least a year,” Saltiel wrote.
The Pakistani high commissioner in London, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, an appointee of Zardari, said Zardari was now healthy, and that his doctors had “declared him fit to run for political office and free of any symptoms,” the report said.
He is running for the office that was vacated by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned under pressure this month.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly lawless northern city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, three men with assault rifles and the long hair and beards of the Taliban attacked a vehicle carrying a top US diplomat, the provincial police chief said.
The bulletproof Land Cruiser carrying the diplomat, Lynne Tracy, the principal officer at the US consulate in Peshawar, was stopped by the three men, who got out of a sport utility vehicle and fired, said the police official, Malik Naveed Khan, inspector-general of police in Northwest Frontier Province.
Tracy, who was headed to work at the consulate from her home about a mile away, was unharmed, he said.
The men attacked as the Taliban, who virtually control the tribal areas adjacent to Peshawar, pressed in on the city, conducting suicide bomb attacks and kidnapping civilians.
The attack occurred in a district known as University Town, considered one of the more secure areas with large houses protected by high walls and security guards.
About 30 Americans work at the consulate, mostly managing economic development programs and as liaisons between the US military and the Pakistani army.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, when Pakistan joined the administration of US President George W. Bush in the campaign against terrorism, the movements of US diplomats in Pakistan have been restricted, and they have been advised not to travel outside major cities.
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