Algeria’s official news agency, APS has denied the death of former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella as reported Thursday by El Watan, a leading North African daily.
This comes a day after Ben Bella was hospitalised at the Ain Naadja Military Hospital in Algiers, the country’s capital.
Pandemonium broke out Thursday morning when El Watan announced Ben Bella’s death citing sources close to Algeria’s first post independent president (1962-1965).
The announcement was later denied by the country’s official news agency, which also cited sources close to the former president.
According to APS, Ben Bella is in “stable” condition and was still under medical observation on Thursday morning at the Ain Naadja Military Hospital.
“The news of his death is false. Mr Ben Bella is still alive (and) under medical observation in hospital after having being evacuated in the early hours of Wednesday,” the source said.
Yesterday, relatives of the former Algerian president had indicated that he had been “admitted to hospital following a seizure” early Wednesday morning but was released after having been “briefly hospitalised”.
The statesman’s brief hospitalisation is said to have allowed doctors to administer an “anti-coagulant” phlebitis treatment. He contracted the disease before the summer of 2011 and was treated in Paris, APS quoted a close source as saying.
Ahmed Ben Bella, who has chaired Advisory Group of the African Union (AU) – in charge of the prevention and conflict management in Africa, since 2007, was recently hospitalised in Paris for “respiratory complications”.
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