[NYTr] US Says a Gitmo Culag Captive Dead of Cancer

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters via Yahoo - Dec 31, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071230/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_death_dc


Guantanamo prisoner dies of cancer: U.S.

An Afghan detainee has died from cancer at the prison camp at the U.S.
naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, authorities said on Sunday.

Abdul Razzak, 68, who was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for
colorectal cancer, was pronounced dead by a doctor at the base on
Sunday morning, the U.S. military said in a statement.

He was the fifth prisoner to die in captivity since the detention and
interrogation camp opened in 2002, Cmdr. Rick Haupt, a spokesman for
the military's Joint Task Force Guantanamo, told Reuters.

The other four deaths at Guantanamo, which currently holds about 290
prisoners, were the result of apparent suicides, according to the U.S.
military.

The United States has drawn intense international criticism for holding
foreign captives for years without charge at its naval base in
southeast Cuba.

Haupt said Razzak was detained in Afghanistan in January 2003 and was a
"committed jihadist."

He did not elaborate except to say that Razzak, who would have turned
69 next month, was accused of "actively engaging the U.S. and its
allies in Afghanistan." He had been held in Guantanamo since January
2003, Haupt added.

"We make every attempt to preserve life here at Guantanamo and we
regret any loss of life," Haupt said.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.