Chavez calls doctor who made dying claim a ‘liar’

VENEZUELA: Hugo Chavez, who had a cancerous tumor removed in June but is secretive about the details of his ailment, has said a doctor who claims the Venezuelan president has only two years to live is a “liar.”

Salvador Navarrete, a Venezuelan doctor who said he was part of Chavez’s medical team until 2002, told Mexico’s Milenio magazine that Chavez has only two years to live because he has an aggressive type of cancer known as sarcoma.

Navarrete fled Venezuela soon after his comments, fearing for his safety.

“He’s a big fat liar. I hope he shows his face,” Chavez said Wednesday.

“He presents himself as a doctor of my family — he isn’t. He says that he operated on my mother — he didn’t,” Chavez said.

Chavez said he used to have a medical team, but that Navarrete “never performed a single test on me.” He wondered “how much he was paid” to make such a statement.

Chavez had a tumor extracted from his pelvic area in June in Havana, and has undergone four rounds of chemotherapy. On October 20 he declared himself cancer-free, but few details of his disease have been made public.

“I’ve told the truth, I feel completely cured, the medical tests show that we’ve turned the page,” Chavez said. AFP