Unable to get adequate treatment at home, he was one of 22 Libyan men flown to Spaulding Hospital North Shore in October under an arrangement coordinated by Libya’s National Transitional Council and the US Department of State. The hospital took pains to adapt to the visitors, creating, for example, a prayer room with a sign pointing toward Mecca.
Alkhazmi’s collarbone and shoulder blade were fractured, and his arm hung limp. He underwent surgery and began to regain some feeling and wiggle fingers. Still, doctors insisted last month that Alkhazmi stay in Salem to get the quality care he was unlikely to find in Libya.
His mind was made up, however. With or without a functioning arm, he was ready to go back - to his small town, his family, and his brother.
His country, he said, needed him.
…
Growing up on a farm in a desert town, Alkhazmi was one of 13 children. He had five brothers, and two of them were close to him in age: Ismail and Mubarak.
On June 17, 2006, those brothers disappeared.
Ismail, a petrochemical engineer who was then 30 years old, was arrested at work. Heba Morayef, a researcher for the international activist organization Human Rights Watch who investigated his case, said officers did not show a warrant and never gave a reason for the arrest.
For 10 months, Alkhazmi’s family made trips to Abu Salim prison, hoping to get word about Ismail and Mubarak, who was 26 at the time and had also been arrested.
“They were against the system,’’ Alkhazmi said of his brothers. “The government, they don’t give you a reason. No one knew what was happening.’’
Finally, in April 2007, prison officials summoned Alkhazmi and his family to Tripoli. Ismail was dead, they informed the family, from a heart attack suffered five months earlier.
Alkhazmi’s father insisted that his son did not have a heart condition. He demanded a second autopsy.
