Former President Hosni Mubarak is in poor health, said the head of public relations for the Interior Ministry’s Prisons Department.
“Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, visited him in the intensive care unit for an hour as procedures and the health condition of her husband allow her to visit him [there],” Major General Mohamed Eleiwa told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Tuesday.
Mubarak spent his third day in Tora Prison’s hospital on Monday after a Cairo criminal court sentenced him to life in prison at the conclusion of his trial on Saturday.
Eleiwa added that Suzanne Mubarak gave her husband personal belongings, like clothes and healthy food. Upon entering, she was screened like all other prison visitors, he said.
The only exception granted was “allowing her to visit Mubarak at the prison’s intensive care unit, especially since [Mubarak] has knee problems, which hinders him from moving. So she was allowed to enter his room instead of us taking him to the visitors’ area,” Eleiwa said.
Addressing rumors that other former Mubarak regime figures imprisoned there visited the former leader, Eleiwa said Mubarak’s wife was his only visitor.
Eleiwa denied that Mubarak had received any food from outside, saying he is only served prison food.
Mubarak currently suffers from knee problems, high blood pressure and heart disorder, Eleiwa said.
Eleiwa said Mubarak is wearing a blue prison uniform, and denied that cameras had been put in his cell, which would violate prison rules.