A woman has blamed the prison authorities in Taif and Jeddah for the deteriorating health of her brother who is living with AIDS. The brother was arrested in a drug related matter five years ago and was sentenced to five years in prison. “But his health got so bad that I asked the Prison Authority to transfer him to a Taif jail for the rest of his sentence,” she said. But at the Taif prison, his condition got even worse and he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the sister said. “The prison didn't consider any better treatment for him and placed him in a badly-ventilated cell crowded with inmates, let alone providing him with health care,” she claimed. The prison kept quiet about his condition despite medical reports showing that he was infected with AIDS, she claimed. The brother, who is now being treated in Jeddah, has only two months to finish his prison term. His sister has pleaded to the prison authorities to release him immediately because of the state of his health. Chief of the Prison Authority in Taif, Brig. Khalaf Al-Qurashi, denied allegations of maltreatment, however. He said the inmate was transferred to Jeddah for AIDS treatment. The prison has a medical team that conducts regular check-ups of inmates, he added. Any prisoner found to be infected with a disease is immediately sent to hospital and isolated from the rest of the inmates, Brig. Al-Qurashi added. The release of the prisoner is in the hands of a higher authority, he said.
