BREAKING: Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf dies aged 79

Colombo (News 1st) - BREAKING: Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has died aged 79 at the American Hospital in Dubai where he was undergoing treatment for a longtime illness.

General Musharraf became Pakistan's 10th president when the military seized power in 1999 from the government of Nawaz Shariff who had ironically promoted Musharraf to head the armed forces as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Chief of Army Staff.

Musharraf resigned from the Presidency in 2008 and lived in London until he returned in 2013 to attempt to contest the presidency, but was disqualified after courts issued arrest warrants on him for the assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and several others. The election was won by Shariff, who had Musharraf charged with high treason. He moved to Dubai and was sentenced to death absentia, but the sentence was later annulled by a higher court.

Born in New Delhi prior to independence in what was then British India, Musharraf grew up in Karachi and Istanbul before joining the Pakistani Army. He served as a junior officer in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 and later heavily supported Afghan militants in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Army.