Libyan Democracy Activist Whose Case Drew U.S. Interest Dies in Custody

A prominent Libyan democracy advocate whose cause had been championed by Vice President Biden died yesterday after nearly seven years in detention, his relatives and human rights groups said.

Fathi al-Jahmi, 68, had been hospitalized in Jordan, where he was transferred this month after falling into a coma, said his brother Mohamed al-Jahmi, who blamed the death on the Libyan government of Moammar Gaddafi.

"The Libyans got him to this state by denying him medical care, isolating him, keeping him from his family," said the brother, who lives near Boston.

The nonprofit group Physicians for Human Rights called for an independent investigation. One of its doctors had determined in a March 2008 visit that Jahmi was suffering from congestive heart failure.

"One would hope that the Obama administration would be calling for a full investigation into his death" and would hold accountable "those responsible for the decline in his health and lack of freedom," said the group's deputy director, Susannah Sirkin.

A State Department spokesman said it was "unfortunate that [Jahmi] wasn't able to recover after he was transferred to the hospital" in Jordan.

Asked whether there would be consequences for Libya because of its treatment of Jahmi, spokesman Ian Kelly said: "We restored our diplomatic relations with Libya. We have a very broad range of issues that we engage on. One of those . . . is the issue of human rights. And so we'll continue to engage on that."

Decades of hostility between the United States and Libya waned in recent years after Gaddafi agreed to give up his program to develop nuclear weapons and renounced international terrorism. Human rights groups had called on the United States to press Jahmi's case as the two countries normalized relations. Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue in Libya last year.

Jahmi, a former Libyan governor, was jailed in 2002 after he called for free speech and political reforms during a conference in Tripoli, the capital. In 2004, Biden met with Gaddafi and urged Jahmi's release. The dissident was freed within days. But two weeks later, he was rearrested after calling again for democratization and labeling Gaddafi a dictator.

Jahmi was subsequently detained in a psychiatric hospital, where his health deteriorated, according to Physicians for Human Rights. Jahmi told the group he was denied medication for his illnesses, which included diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Jahmi was moved nearly two years ago to a state-run medical facility in Tripoli, where care appeared to be better, according to human rights groups. But he did not trust doctors there to operate on him, and he was not allowed to seek treatment elsewhere, they said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met on April 21 with Gaddafi's son Mutassim, the Libyan security adviser. "We did raise human rights issues," including Jahmi's case, Clinton later told journalists. But Kelly said yesterday that Clinton had instructed other State Department officials to bring up the case.

Libya's embassy in Washington did not return a call seeking comment.