Pervez Musharraf: former president of Pakistan battling rare disease in hospital

Retired general, who was president between 2001 and 2008, is not expected to recover

Pervez Musharraf pictured in Pakistan in 2005. Getty Images

Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf was receiving hospital treatment for a rare disease that causes organ damage and was not likely to recover, his family said on Friday.

A statement from Musharraf's office said the former president had been in hospital for three weeks due to complications caused by Amyloidosis, a rare group of conditions caused by a build-up of an abnormal protein called amyloid in tissues throughout the body.

These protein deposits can make it difficult for organs to function and, as they cannot be removed, there is not currently a cure for amyloidosis.

In a Twitter post, the former president's family said Musharraf was "going through a difficult stage where recovery is not possible and [his] organs are malfunctioning" and asked his followers to "pray for ease in his daily living".

A retired four-star general, Musharraf became Pakistan's tenth president after the military takeover of the federal government in 1999.

He held the presidency from 2001 until 2008, when he resigned in order to avoid impeachment.

Born in Delhi during the time of the British Raj, Musharraf grew up in the port city of Karachi and Turkey's Istanbul.

He became a prominent figure in Pakistan when he was made a four-star general by then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1998 and became the head of the country's armed forces.