Constitutional Law
Lawyers Seek Criminal Probe in Death of Ailing US Detainee, 34
Posted Aug 13, 2008, 04:02 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Attorneys representing a 34-year-old Hong Kong man being held by U.S. authorities in an immigration case are seeking a criminal investigation of his death last week, apparently as a result of an untreated medical condition.
Although Hiu Lui Ng began complaining of excruciating back pain in April, authorities did not seek appropriate medical treatment for him until a judge insisted July 31 that they do so, according to the New York Times.
"In federal court affidavits, Mr. Ng’s lawyers contend that when he complained of severe pain that did not respond to analgesics, and grew too weak to walk or even stand to call his family from a detention pay phone, officials accused him of faking his condition. They denied him a wheelchair and refused pleas for an independent medical evaluation," the newspaper writes.
Instead, as his attorneys pursued a habeas petition seeking his release for medical treatment, guards dragged him from his detention facility bed in Rhode Island on July 30 and took him in shackles to a federal lockup in Hartford, Conn., where he was pressured by an immigration official to agree to be deported, the Times says. Later the same day, they returned him to the detention facility.
"On Aug. 1, Mr. Ng was taken to a hospital, where doctors found he had terminal cancer and a fractured spine. He died five days later," the Times writes.
Lawyers for Ng have sent a letter to federal and state prosecutors in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the detention system, calling for a criminal investigation.
Other cases of claimed failure by authorities to provided needed medical care for immigrants being held in detention facilities have prompted federal legislation to set standards. The legislation is now before the House Judiciary Committee.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: "Worse than Prison Inmate Medical Care: Detained Immigrants’ Medical Care"
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