Treatment Sought for Muslim Leader

An attorney for a jailed Muslim leader who was hospitalized with chest pains over the weekend plans to file an emergency motion in immigration court today asking that the 53-year-old man be released to allow him to seek treatment from his own doctors.

Wagdy Mohamed Ghoneim, an Egyptian who serves as an imam at the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim, was arrested Nov. 4 and has been held ever since at a federal detention facility in San Pedro on suspicion of being in the country illegally. His attorneys have said he had a valid visa.

On Saturday morning, Ghoneim was taken to an undisclosed hospital after complaining of chest pains, according to Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Haley said Sunday that Ghoneim had been returned to the detention center. But his attorney Valerie Curtis-Diop said he remained hospitalized Sunday night.

Ghoneim’s bond hearing was originally scheduled for Nov. 30 but was delayed until Dec. 28 so the court could find an interpreter.

Curtis-Diop, noting that Ghoneim has medical insurance and a private physician, said Sunday that she planned to file an emergency motion in immigration court to move up the bond hearing.

The latest developments, in a case that has been closely followed in the Muslim community, prompted Ghoneim’s family to call for an “urgent investigation” into what they described as “callous” treatment at the hands of government officials.

Sabiha Khan, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said no family members had been permitted to visit Ghoneim in the hospital.

Khan, who said she spoke for the family, said, “Such callous treatment of someone who is only charged with minor immigration violations goes against American values of compassion and justice.”

Normally, Haley said, family members were permitted to see detainees under such circumstances, but she was uncertain what had happened in Ghoneim’s case.

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Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.