Conflicting reports circulate on Mubarak's health

Toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak's 'clinical death' is widely being circulated, but sources inform Ahram Online and Reuters that the imprisoned president is 'technically alive'

Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades until overthrown by last year, was on life support in hospital, military officials said on Tuesday, but they denied a report he was clinically dead.
Earlier the state news agency, amid high tension over the election of a new president, quoted medical sources as saying the former head of state, aged 84, was "clinically dead". That description was used also to Reuters by a hospital source.
Meanwhile, speaking to Ahram Online before midnight Tuesday, an informed source denied news circulating that suggested that Mubarak is already dead. He said that the ousted president is still technically alive.
He would not comment on whether or not Mubarak could survive the current health attack.
"I am not that close to the direct medical circle; only a few people know the exact health condition of Mubarak at this particular moment," he said.
Three sources in the military and security services, which retain control following the revolt, confirmed to Reuters that Mubarak was being kept alive and said they would not use the expression "clinically dead" to describe his condition.
General Said Abbas, a member of the ruling military council, told Reuters, that Mubarak had suffered a stroke but added: "Any talk of him being clinically dead is nonsense."
Another military source said: "He is completely unconscious. He is using artificial respiration."
A security source also gave the same account and said: "It is still early to say that he is clinically dead."
The plan to move Mubarak to the Maadi military hospital has been under way for a few days – effectively since he arrived to the Tora Prison Hospital on 2 June, after having been sentence to a life time imprisonment after having been found guilty of turning a blind eye ot the killing of innocent demonstrators in Tahrir Square, and elsewhere in Egypt during the early days of the 25 January Revolution.
During the best part of last year, Mubarak had been kept at the international medical center, out of Cairo where he was reported to go several medical problems – some related to old age and some related to a state of cancer that he had suffered from durig the past three years.
Mubarak arrived to office in October 1981 following the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat. Sadat was shot at by angry Islamsit army soldier during a parade to commemorate the October War. He was rushed to the Maadi Hospital where he died on the evening of 6 October.
The confusion over the state of health of the former leader came as his long-time opponents in the Muslim Brotherhood claimed victory over a candidate drawn from military elite in a presidential election held at the weekend.
Results have not been published, and supporters of Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak's former prime minister who was running against the Islamist Mohamed Morsy, said it was he who had won.
State news agency MENA had earlier cited medical sources to say that Mubarak was clinically dead. His heart had stopped beating and could not be revived.
Later, however, the agency, citing medical sources, said a medical team was still trying treat a blood clot on the brain, adding that he had not left the intensive care unit at Tora prison, where he had been held since being sentenced to life imprisonment on June 2 for his role in the deaths of protesters.