DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

CARACAS (Dow Jones)-- A prominent Venezuelan doctor who told a news magazine that President Hugo Chavez wouldn't likely live longer than two years because of an aggressive cancer fled the country after a visit by state intelligence officials, the surgeon said in a statement published Friday.

Salvador Navarrete, who reportedly was among Chavez's personal physicians for a period beginning in 2002, wrote in an open letter that appeared in the opposition newspaper Tal Cual that his comments on Chavez's health were distorted and taken out of context.

"I am not a traitor," he wrote in the statement. Navarrete added that he was only offering the news magazine, Mexico's Milenio Semanal, his professional opinion based partly on the president's own public statements, indicating that he din't (??) violate any confidentiality or intend to be conclusive.

Navarrete did repeat his concerns that Chavez may secretly be gravely ill. "I am concerned that the president and his political circle do not know the magnitude of his illness because it has been handled with complete secrecy," he wrote in Tal Cual.

In the open letter, Navarrete offered no details explaining his sudden departure from Venezuela saying that events "obligated me to leave the country with my family in an abrupt manner, something that I did not want and did not plan to do." (good move, velcome to da free world, now give up the dirt on Chavez)

He did confirm reports in Wednesday's edition of Tal Cual that the Venezuelan intelligence service, known as Sebin, had visited Navarrete after the release of the Milenio interview. Navarrete didn't offer details on the encounter.

Earlier in the week, Navarrete appeared in Milenio Semanal claiming that Chavez had an aggressive pelvic tumor known as sarcoma, a cancer of the bone and well as soft tissues such as fat (oh boy, much worries here) and muscle (no worries here). The 57-year-old Chavez has been battling cancer since June but has refused to publicly disclose the exact nature and extent of the illness.

"And when I say that the prognosis is not good, it means that the life expectancy can be of up to two years," ( so a few months just after Easter, sooner rather than later not out of da picture) Navarrete said in the magazine.

In the Milenio article, Navarrete said he assessed Chavez's condition through his access to the president's relatives as the family's surgeon but not through direct examination. Navarrete, who said he has not been part of the president's medical staff for several years, added that Chavez has turned to Cuban doctors almost exclusively during cancer treatment. ( you should da administer 2 kg of propofol bro )

Navarrete was a former professor at the Central University of Venezuela and an early member before withdrawing of what would become Chavez's ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV.

Chavez has undergone four rounds of chemotherapy, three of which took place in Cuba, since having a cancerous tumor removed by doctors in Havana on June 20. The leftist leader returned from his latest stint in Cuba earlier this week and reiterated that medical tests show he is now cancer-free. (Venezuela still not free of a cancer)

-By Ezequiel Minaya, Dow Jones Newswires; 58-414-120-5738; ezequiel.minaya@dowjones.com