BEIJING: Chinese doctors treating ailing Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo warned US and German medical experts he is too sick to travel abroad for care, the hospital looking after him said in a statement on Saturday.

The foreign doctors visited Liu, China’s most prominent democracy advocate, at the hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang following international pressure for China to let him go abroad or allow him to choose his own treatment.

Beijing has come under fire from human rights groups over its treatment of the activist and for waiting until he became terminally sick to release him from prison more than a month ago.

But the hospital said the experts concurred that Liu has been afforded top medical care from renowned doctors.

The First Hospital of China Medical University said Liu, 61, was visited by American oncology expert Joseph Herman from the MD Anderson Cancer Centre and German doctor Marcus Buchler from Heidelberg University.

The doctors, who were invited by the hospital at Liu’s family’s request, found that Liu had excess abdominal fluid and was in serious condition, the hospital said on its website.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2017