Anne Sutherland - MONTREAL — Former MUHC hospital administrator Arthur Porter has filed a complaint with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights over what he claims is inhumane treatment in a Panamanian prison.
His lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick, says that Porter has not been seen by a medical doctor and “he hasn’t even had an aspirin” in the almost four months of his incarceration.
“If he dies, there’s no point in extradition,” Bilonick said Tuesday from the Central American city.
Porter has been detained in Panama City since May. He and his wife were arrested at the airport on their way to Trinidad and Tobago from their home in Nassau.
He is alleged to have taken millions for his part in the awarding of a contract to build the billion-dollar McGill University Hospital Centre superhospital in the Glen Yards.
Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, UPAC, issued a warrant for his arrest in February on charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit government fraud, abuse of trust and laundering the proceeds of a crime.
His wife, Pamela Mattock Porter, has been charged with money laundering. She was extradited to Montreal in June and is currently out on bond. Porter has said he is too sick to be returned to Canada and is fighting extradition.
Porter has said that he has stage-four lung cancer, self-diagnosed. Porter and Bilonick maintain that since he was arrested on May 27, he has not had any blood tests or other status updates about the condition of his cancer.
Bilonick said that Porter has been taking chemotherapy drugs he had with him when he was arrested but that no blood has been drawn or medical attention given in the prison infirmary or a hospital setting in Panama.
“He was supposed to be evaluated the week after his arrest. I have asked again and again but I have had no response. It is for that reason that we filed a report to the United Nations,” Bilonick said.
Porter’s personal physician, Karol Sikora, has visited him in prison but Bilonick said that visit was more social than professional.
“I got the doctor in (to the prison) just to say hello and to ask him how he feels and I see him three times a week but I’m not a doctor. His doctor was not able to give Porter any tests in a medical centre.”
Bilonick said that Porter “is not just your local Canadian, he was the chief of intelligence,” a reference to the 2008 appointment of Arthur Porter to the five-member Security Intelligence Review Committee, entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
That appointment was made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Porter resigned from that post in 2011.
Bilonick said that the fate of Porter lies squarely on the shoulders of both Canada and Panama and he wants the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to look into how he is being treated in the current situation. “Both Panama and Canada will be responsible if something happens to him,” the lawyer said.