A lawyer for Anwar Ibrahim today questioned the Selayang Hospital as to why the visual of the former deputy prime minister's MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan done at the hospital was deleted from the machine without Anwar's consent.

In a letter to the hospital made available to the press today, lawyer Sankara Nair said that Anwar had undergone an MRI scan on his lower back at the hospital on Nov 24.

"We are further informed by our client that it has come to his knowledge that the results and visual of the said scan have been deliberately deleted from the MRI scan machine by officers of your hospital, without our client's consent and prior knowledge," he said in the letter.

Sankara requested an explanation from the hospital as to the reasons for the deletion.

When contacted, an aide of Dr Rosnah Hadis (whose attention the letter was brought to) said that she was not aware of this particular case, but the normal procedure of the hospital was to retain a hard (on film) copy of an MRI scan done.

"We don't delete the results. We keep both the hard and soft copy," she said.

Unclear copy

Meanwhile, Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that her family was given a film of the MRI scan.

"But we requested for another copy recently and were told that they had deleted it. We had to then make a copy from the film we had but the resolution is not too good," she said.

Anwar, who is currently serving a total of 15 years' jail terms at the Sungai Buloh Prison was admitted to KLGH on November 25 with a condition known as "prolapsed intervertebral disc" (slipped disc).

His condition has deteriorated and doctors have advised surgery.

Anwar suffered a fall during a horse riding incident when he was still deputy prime minister and while in detention in 1998 fell over a slab of cement during the infamous "black eye incident" when he was beaten by former police chief Abdul Rahim Noor.