A long-held Afghan detainee whom the U.S. military labeled ''an experienced jihadist'' died of cancer on Sunday at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The Pentagon's U.S. Southern Command, which supervises the prison camps, issued a statement in Miami to disclose the death of Abdul Razzak, about 68, of Afghanistan.
The Southcom statement said doctors discovered the captive had colon cancer after he suffered abdominal pains in September. Chemotherapy began in October, it said.
Doctors had disclosed Abdul Razzak's condition earlier in the month, without naming him. On Dec. 4, a Navy medical officer told reporters during a hospital tour at the prison camps that a captive had been diagnosed with some form of cancer and was being given chemotherapy. The physician did not indicate that death was weeks away.
Abdul Razzak was the fifth detainee to die at the detention center, which opened in January 2002, and his was the first reported death there by disease.
In June 2006, three Arab men from Saudi Arabia and Yemen were found simultaneously hanging in their cells and a year later, in May, another Saudi was found hanging. Those episodes are still under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
At the prison camps Sunday afternoon, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt was unable to say whether the dead detainee had been the eldest among the captives in custody, which the Pentagon estimates at "approximately 275."
Southcom said a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross was ``present to witness the care provided to the detainee prior to and at the time of death.''
An autopsy was planned, but no independent criminal investigation.
''Abdul Razzak was assessed to be an experienced jihadist with command responsibilities and was assessed to have had multiple links to anti-coalition forces,'' Southcom said in a statement, announcing the death. ``He was detained in Guantánamo as an enemy combatant.''
In 2004, Abdul Razzak disputed the characterization at a hearing before a U.S. military panel, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.
''I am just a poor man, trying to work, feed my family and take care of my family,'' he told three officers trying to decide whether he met the Defense Department definition of an enemy combatant.
``I was not a big person in the country and how could they say anyone could do all these things? I was just doing regular work to support my family and my enemy did this to me.''
Defense Department documents say he was born Jan. 1, 1939 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was weighed in at 163 pounds on his arrival at the prison camps in late March 2003, according to Pentagon documents posted on its detainee information website.
The prison camps spokesman, Haupt, said by telephone Sunday afternoon that an autopsy would be performed, but the cause of death was clear. ``It's colon cancer, and the death is attributed to that cancer.''
No investigation was planned, ''because it was a medically-attended death,'' Haupt said. ``Nothing is suspect about this death.''
It was not clear Sunday whether the man's remains would be repatriated to Afghanistan for burial. That decision would be made ''sometime in the future,'' Haupt said.
''We make every attempt to preserve life,'' he added. ``We regret every loss of life. He was treated very humanely.''
He also said he did not know whether the man's family had been told of his death and whether there had been an effort to reach a relative before he died.
''The government of Afghanistan has been notified,'' he said.
