WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD – U.S. Senator John McCain, a towering figure in American politics, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam and U.S. war hero, a self-styled maverick Republican and an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. President died on Saturday, at the age of 81.
McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona for more than three decades, had been battling glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, since July 2017 and had not been at the U.S. Capitol in 2018. He also had surgery for an intestinal infection in April.
His family announced on Friday that McCain was discontinuing further cancer treatment.
“Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28 p.m. on August 25, 2018. With the senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years,” a statement from his office on Saturday.
McCain will lie in state in both Phoenix, Arizona, and in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., and will receive a full dress funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral before being buried in Annapolis, Maryland, his family said.
Former President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Joe Biden were expected to give homages.
US President Donald Trump, who once mocked McCain’s war record, said he sent his “deepest sympathies and respect.” McCain had been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of Trump, accusing him of “naivete,” “egotism” and of sympathizing with autocrats.
He made a decisive vote last year that killed Republican attempts to repeal Barack Obama’s health care reforms, and Trump never forgave him.
“Sardar Hayaat MUHAMMED Khan Mandokhel (Title: Sardar-e-Aala) the supreme chief of Mandokhel, Hadizai tribes”, Former Prime Minister Pakistan Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Former President Pakistan Asif Zardari and other regional heads and leaders offered their deepest condolences to the late senator’s family and friends and regarded him as an American Hero.