Wa'ed accuses the IOA of killing Palestinian captives slowly

[ 19/05/2009 - 11:49 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Wa'ed society for prisoners and ex-prisoners' affairs have called on the IOA to immediately and unconditionally release Palestinian captive Waleed Akel, accusing it of slowly killing captives through deliberate medical neglect. Wife of Akel, who is living in Gaza Strip and who was denied by the IOA from visiting her husband, telephoned the society on Tuesday, and informed them that her husband's health was continuously deteriorating, and that he should be released on human considerations as her husband, according to Waed's records, suffers high blood pressure and of diabetes. She was quoted by Wa'ed as saying, "He sleeps most of the time, and wakes up only for short period of time where he asks his comrades to take care of his wife and children if he passed away in the jail". Akel was denied family visits for three years now, and his family knows the information about him through the feedback coming from relatives of other Palestinian captives from the West Bank. She also asked the IPA to allow her husband's first cousin Khamis Akel, who is detained in the same jail, but a different section, to be with her husband in order to attend for his needs, calling on the IPA to allow her husband talk to his children even through phone. "I believe that this is one of the simplest rights of a captive," she underscored. According to the society, number of the sick Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails increased noticeably after the IPA used them as guinea pigs for testing new drugs produced by the Israeli factories, in addition to the inhuman policy of deliberate medical neglect against the captives. The society urged the international community to immediately pressure the IOA into releasing and giving proper medical treatment to Akel, and to other sick Palestinian captives in Israeli jails who number 1600 captives, 250 of them need surgical operations. Akel, who has three daughters and one son, was arrested in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms.