LONDON Former Pakistan president General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf left here on Sunday for Prague where he is scheduled to deliver a lecture at a defence-related think tank on May 27.
Musharraf arrived here early last month after having travelled to China and Saudi Arabia on what is being described by his friends as a post-retirement extended holiday.
He had taken a quick round trip to the US earlier this month to appear in a Fareed Zakria show on the CNN. He appeared in a David Frost show on Al Jazeera last month in London. He is expected to return to the US for a month-long lecture tour in September.
In London, he is staying at the Richmond house of his old friend and long-standing bridge partner Brigadier Niaz.
Some of his close friends here said that he was looking around to buy a flat in central London, preferably around Edgware Road area where most of the property is owned by Arabs and where a two-bed room flat costs around pounds 500,000 to pounds 700,000. Others said that he was looking for a villa in Chelsea where the property was worth between £2 million to £5 million.
But sources not very close to Musharraf, claiming to be well informed about his activities in London, say that he has already bought a flat in the Edgeware Road neighbourhood where Interior Minister Rehman Malik also has his flat which was the venue of the signing of the historic Charter of Democracy between the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair lives in the same neighbourhood.
Musharraf and former first lady Sehba Musharraf have a personal staff of around 10 persons, including an in-service Colonel and a Major.
His close friends insist that he has no intention of settling down in the UK. But his detractors are convinced that he has no plans of going back home, at least until the retirement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
His PR in the UK is being looked after by the son of former PIA managing director Aslam R. Khan.
One of his old friends, a former air force officer Zafar Iqbal, is said to have approached a number of well-informed persons to get an idea about the various possibilities in store for Musharraf on his return home.
The forme r president is said to be spending most of his time in London playing bridge, sight-seeing and partying within a close-knit circle.
Earlier this month he is said to have met a number of his friends from Pakistan at a party hosted by Hafeez Pirzada. Those who attended the party included former prime minister Shaukat Aziz and former interim prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi. Anwar Pervez of the Bestways and other well-known British tycoons of Pakistani origin are also said to be his regular hosts.
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