ISLAMABAD - PPP leader Senator Sherry Rehman Wednesday demanded of the govt to shift PPP co-Chairman Asif Zardari back to the hospital.

“The treatment of former president Asif Zardari despite there not being a single charge that has been proven against him has exposed the government’s true intent of using the rhetoric of accountability as a tool for their own political gains. The PPP has never been afraid of accountability but the govt cannot use it as a tool to silence and target their political opponents. We should not forget that President Zardari has spent 11 and half years in prison before without any conviction,” she said in a statement.

She added: “We will not be silenced and will keep raising our voice against a system where dictators accused of treason do not appear in courts for years while the politicians go to jail pre-trial and on cases pending investigation.”

Doctors, she said, from all sides including the National Accountability Bureau “are saying he is not in a condition to be kept out of the hospital. This poses a clear risk to his life and the government should know that if God forbid something untoward happens to him, they will be known as murderers.”

She said how can such “unlawful punishment” be meted out to someone under investigation only, “not under trial or conviction?” “The govt needs to give us an assurance that they will move President Asif Ali Zardari back to the hospital,” she added.

The PPP Vice President said: ‘NAB is being pressurised not to disclose his medical reports and the doctors have had to give in to the pressure to shift Zardari to Adiala despite the fact that his condition requires he be given proper medical care. His doctors have informed his daughter, Aseefa Zardari, that three of his arteries are blocked and that spinal issues that he developed in his previous incarceration have resurfaced’.