JERUSALEM, Jan 24: Doctors treating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon concealed the gravity of his medical condition from the public after he suffered a first stroke last month, a newspaper charged on Tuesday.

When Mr Sharon was discharged from hospital after a minor stroke — less than three weeks before he succumbed to a massive brain haemorrhage — he had cardiac and cerebral diseases that were not revealed, the Haaretz said.

The 77-year-old leader, who has been replaced by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert since his collapse on January 4, was lying in a coma for the 20th day Tuesday in Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital.

At the time of his first stroke, doctors said they had discovered Mr Sharon had a small hole in the heart since birth. The defect was to have been repaired the day after he suffered his stroke.

But Haaretz said its own inquiries showed Mr Sharon also suffered from more serious, life-threatening heart problems, including a large aneurysm in the septum.

Such a condition is a known source of cerebral blood embolisms, and indeed led to the blood clot that caused Mr Sharon’s first stroke, Haaretz reported doctors at the Hadassah as saying.—AFP