The unsettling secret behind Tony Abbott’s worrying new appearance – as doctors reveal why his face is now pockmarked by sores

Tony Abbott appeared at a memorial service at Parliament House shortly after having potentially cancer-causing age spots removed from his face.

The 66-year-old former prime minister gathered with his colleagues in Canberra on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which killed all 298 passengers, including 38 Australians.

The passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Buk missile fired by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Mr Abbott, then prime minister, threatened a ‘shirt front’ of Russian President Vladimir Putin after the attack. He still believes Moscow should take responsibility for the tragedy.

Speaking to ABC Radio ahead of Wednesday’s memorial service, he said: ‘To be honest I should have done more than just put my shirt on him because that was probably the only way to stop him.

‘Russian missile batteries don’t just end up in neighboring countries. This kind of thing only happens when it is approved from above.’

Foreign Minister Penny Wong thanked Mr Abbott for attending the service in her speech. He was seated next to Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts, who had a number of painful-looking red marks on his face and head.

Daily Mail Australia can confirm the sores were caused by a treatment for sun spots, a method of preventing cancer.

Doctor Parisa Fatemeh Arianejad, a dermatologist at Aurora Dermatology in Sydney, told Daily Mail Australia that sun spots are precancerous lesions.

“There is a four percent chance that these will turn into cancer within five years, so if we see sun spots, we need to treat them,” she said.

Although she is not certain what treatment Mr Abbott underwent, Dr Arianejed suspects he may have undergone photodynamic therapy.

The treatment consists of a cream applied to the skin to increase sensitivity, after which light energy is used to kill the cells.

The treatment causes temporary inflammation, but eventually the skin heals completely.

Other treatments include freezing or burning the sunspot, or surgically removing the lesions.

“The risks increase as you get older, but there are other factors too, such as if you were born in Australia, if you had sunburn as a child, or if you don’t wear sunscreen,” she said.

Mr Abbott, a former triathlete, managed to maintain a rigorous outdoor training regime during his time as the country’s leader.

His workouts consisted of 50 minutes of cardio training, either running outdoors, cycling or swimming in the ocean.

Mr Abbott did not discuss his skin treatments in his interview with ABC Radio on Wednesday, instead focusing on the MH17 tragedy.

“Russian President Putin owes an apology and compensation to the families of the dead, because it is clear that this plane was shot down to achieve Russia’s geopolitical goals in Ukraine,” he said.

“Yes, it was a tragedy, but it was worse than that. It was an atrocity.”

Looking back on the anniversary, Abbott recalled the heated exchange when he first met Putin after the downing of the plane during the 2001 APEC summit in Beijing.

He recalled that the Russian president had said that all Ukrainians were fascists and that they had shot down the plane themselves as “some kind of provocation.”

‘Than [Putin] said that Ukraine had no right to exist.’

Mr Abbott said they were walking back to the conference when Putin turned, grabbed him by the elbows and tried to shake him, then pushed him away and said: ‘Look, you’re not a native Australian, I’m a native Russian.’

He continues: ‘It was already quite clear to me what he was talking about. I just think it’s a shame that more wasn’t done to help the Ukrainians.’