Lukashenka settled liver transplantation for Meir Dagan within 2.5 hours. Israeli newspaper Maariv reveals new details about the operation.
The condition of ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan who received a liver transplant in Minsk is improving, RFE/RL writes.
Dagan still remains in intensive care unit, but he is already conscious.
He asked his wife and friends to bring him a "good piece of salmon," but it is forbidden by the hospital rules and Dagan has to content himself with hospital food.
Dagan is said to talk little and report the rare visitors he "is OK."
However, the new details of the operation have been appearing lately.
Some weeks ago, Israel foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman addressed an official Israeli representative in Minsk and required him to contact Lukashenka and ask the Belarusian president to place Meir Dagan in a governmental hospital for a liver transplantation.
On that very day, the representative contacted Belarus’ deputy prime minister Anatol Tozik, and Tozik passed the request to Lukashenka.
"President Lukashenka approved the request within 2.5 hours," one of the witnesses of the negotiations told.
Two days later Dagan was delivered to Minsk by a private plane. He was met by the deputy chief of Belarus’ secret service.
Meir Dagan arrived in Belarus together with his wife and children and Israeli bodyguards.
Dagan was received president-like and taken to a hotel accompanied by a cortege of state automobiles.
He was examined within five following days and passed all necessary tests.
Now the only obstacle on the way to liver transplantation was finding a donor. The doctors of transplantation centre told Dagan it would take two or three days to find a donor.
Dagan decided to spend these days together with his grandson in Israel and returned home. However after a few hours he was back to Israel, Dagan was reached on the phone from Belarus and told that a donor had been found.
Dagan returned to Minsk. French surgeon Daniel Azoulay arrived soon after Dagan brought by a special flight from Paris.
"That time Dagan looked really ill," an eyewitness said. "His face was black, his breathing was laboured. He looked like a man at death’s door."
Belarusian secret services prepared a posh BMW for Dagan, but he preferred to use and ordinary car and went to hospital with his wife and bodyguards surrounded by Belarusian cortege.
The operation lasted for nine hours. The Belarusian assistants were highly praised by the French surgeon.
Few hours before the operation, Dagan asked one of the Israeli officials in Minsk to send a message saying "Thank Ivet." Ivet is the pet name of Avigdor Lieberman.
Lieberman keep on receiving information about the condition of Meir Dagan.
The V.I.P. patient was also visited by Belarus’ minister of health care.
Few days ago, President of Israel Shimon Peres phoned Lukashenka and expressed his gratitude for help to Dagan.
Lukashenka told Peres he knows Dagan from their previous meetings and also invited Israeli leader to Belarus.
