Saleh’s health said to be ‘bad,’ but physician denies Yemini president has brain hemorrhage

An informed source in Riyadh told Agence-France Presse that the health of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was “bad.”

Al Arabiya TV reported late Saturday that Mr. Saleh’s physician denied that he suffered from brain hemorrhage.

Mr. Saleh is stable and recovering from injuries suffered in an attack on his palace, the country’s ambassador in London said on Saturday.

“He’s in stable condition and recovering,” Abdulla Ali al-Radhi, Yemen’s ambassador to Britain, told Reuters. "He’s in his wing in the hospital, no longer in intensive care. He’s conscious and talking.”

“The information we have says that President Saleh is still in bad condition, mainly as he suffers problems in the lungs and respiration,” said the Yemeni expatriate who requested anonymity.

Mr. Saleh was flown to Riyadh on June 4 on board a Saudi medical aircraft to be treated, a day after an explosion ripped through a mosque where he was praying inside his Sana’a presidential compound.

Yemeni officials have insisted Mr. Saleh is speedily recovering, and tens of thousands of his loyalists took to the streets of the Yemeni capital after news that he was out of intensive care.

A Saudi official told AFP on Wednesday that the health of Mr. Saleh was “stable” and dismissed reports that his health was deteriorating as “baseless.”

Mr. Saleh has not been seen in public since the attack.

Several officials, including caretaker Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Mujawar and head of parliament Abdulaziz Abdulghani, were hurt in the bomb and are being treated in Saudi Arabia.

(Dina Al-Shibeeb, a senior editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: [email protected])