FOXNews.com - Gitmo Prisoner Says Procedures Botched

Gitmo Prisoner Says Procedures Botched

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

By ANDREW O. SELSKY, Associated Press

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A detainee at Guantanamo Bay who needs a medical procedure on his heart said Tuesday he doesn't want it performed there because operations on other detainees have been botched _ an accusation the base commander denied.

Saifullah Paracha, a multimillionaire Pakistani businessman held at Guantanamo, "believes that two prisoners have lost their vocal cords after routine tonsillectomies, that a prisoner lost part of his leg because of a surgical sponge left in him which became infected, and that a prisoner lost a testicle from similar neglect," said Gaillard T. Hunt, his attorney.

Hunt said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that Paracha made these allegations Tuesday in a phone call that was monitored by the military. It is rare for attorneys to be permitted to speak with Guantanamo Bay detainees by phone, but a U.S. Department of Justice attorney has said Paracha should be encouraged to undergo a cardiac catheterization.

Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the detention facilities, said Paracha's allegations that the medical staff has botched operations "are absolutely false."

"The medical staff is dedicated to saving the lives and improving the health of the detainees," Harris said.

Paracha has reportedly suffered two heart attacks. During a cardiac catheterization, a doctor inserts a thin plastic tube into an artery or vein and pushes it into the chambers of the heart or the coronary arteries to measure blood pressure within the heart and blood oxygen levels.

Such a procedure would enable Guantanamo Bay medical personnel to determine the treatment regimen for the prisoner's coronary disease. But Paracha, 59, has insisted he be transferred to a hospital in the United States or Pakistan for the procedure, saying he didn't believe medical center at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba was capable.

At a cost of $400,000, the military flew in 24 personnel to Guantanamo to support the cardiac catheterization, including an interventional cardiologist, two cardio-thoracic surgeons and 21 support personnel, Harris said. A state-of-the-art mobile cardiac treatment facility was transported to Guantanamo to support the surgery.

But the prisoner on Tuesday rejected the procedure.

"His decision to decline treatment will be respected as his condition is not immediately life-threatening, although his cardiac health would be greatly improved with this surgery," Harris said.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled Monday in Washington that the U.S. military is not required to send Paracha to a civilian hospital. Friedman said the government regularly decides how best to treat civilian prisoners inside the United States and judges rarely intervene.

Paracha suffered his first heart attack in 1995 and had a second one in 2003 while in U.S. military custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

A computer science graduate of the New York Institute of Technology, Paracha was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2003, held in isolation for 14 months in Afghanistan and then sent to Guantanamo.

Paracha has acknowledged meeting Osama bin Laden twice, but denied making investments for al-Qaida members, translating statements for bin Laden, joining in a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States or recommending that nuclear weapons be used against U.S. soldiers