CAIRO — A new sense of political intrigue compounded the confusion over the health of Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday when one of his lawyers contradicted what he called false reports in Egypt’s state-run media that the imprisoned former president had nearly died, insisting that Mr. Mubarak simply fell down in the prison bathroom.

The new account from the lawyer, Youssri Abdel Razeq, raised new questions not only about Mr. Mubarak’s condition but about possible motives within the military-led government that has been in charge since Mr. Mubarak was deposed in the Egyptian revolution last year.

Until Tuesday, Mr. Mubarak, 84, had been kept in the medical wing of a Cairo prison where he had served 17 days of a life sentence for murder as an accomplice in the police killing of hundreds of demonstrators during the protests that eventually toppled him. His lawyers had complained that his deteriorating health meant he should be spared incarceration.

Conflicting reports about Mr. Mubarak’s deteriorating health began to circulate on Tuesday, including one that declared him “clinically dead,” just as the military council was attempting to extend its hold on state power indefinitely in the face of growing street protests demanding it cede authority to a newly elected president and reinstate the dissolved parliament. Egyptian officials, the state news agency and official media said he had been removed from the prison to a hospital after a stroke and heart attack had left him in a coma, near death and dependent on artificial life support.