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| Former Pakistani president dies | Former Pakistani president dies |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| Former president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, has died after a long illness at the age of 91. | Former president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, has died after a long illness at the age of 91. |
| Khan died in the northern city of Peshawar on Friday morning. His family said he was suffering from pneumonia. | Khan died in the northern city of Peshawar on Friday morning. His family said he was suffering from pneumonia. |
| He became the president after former military ruler, Zia ul-Haq, was killed in a plane crash in 1988. | He became the president after former military ruler, Zia ul-Haq, was killed in a plane crash in 1988. |
| Khan resigned in 1993, when his controversial dismissal of the Nawaz Sharif government, and its restoration by the courts, created a crisis. | Khan resigned in 1993, when his controversial dismissal of the Nawaz Sharif government, and its restoration by the courts, created a crisis. |
| In a message of condolence, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf described Khan as "an honest, upright person", while Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said his contributions to Pakistan would be long remembered. | |
| Controversial dismissals | |
| Khan was born in the village of Ismailkhel in Bannu district in North-West Frontier Province in 1915, and graduated in chemistry before joining the Indian provincial civil service. | |
| He served in various secretarial positions in India and Pakistan before and after partition. | |
| During the regime of Gen Zia in the 1980s, Khan diversified into politics, becoming a federal minister and later chairman of the Senate. | |
| But he is better known for his role as president when he dismissed two consecutive elected governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in 1990 and 1993. | |
| Though both dismissals were controversial, the latter cost him his job when the military intervened and forced both Khan and Nawaz Sharif to resign. | |
| Since then, Khan lived a quiet life in his Peshawar residence, making no public appearances and granting no interviews to the media. |