Anwar needs back surgery

Anwar needs back surgery

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Jailed former Malaysian finance minister Anwar Ibrahim has agreed to spinal surgery after weeks in hospital but the treatment he wants may not happen unless he goes overseas, his lawyer said.

"Our request is very plain. It doesn't say we want overseas treatment. If it's available here we can consider but it's not, to the best of our knowledge," Anwar's counsel Sankara Nair told said on Thursday.

Nair said he had written last week to the government-run Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where Anwar has been since Nov. 25, to propose the sophisticated surgery recommended by both local and foreign surgeons.

The doctors, including specialists from Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, St May's Hospital in Texas, United States and Alpha-Klinik in Munich, Germany, have recommended "endoscopic micro spinal" surgery, the lawyer said in his letter.