Report filed by ABC 6, Columbus, Ohio.
A life-saving surgery for a killer on death row. A man who brutally slaughtered four people, including his wife and two year old niece. And we’re finding out that tax dollars paid for the expensive surgery.
The four people were murdered, by former Columbus, Ohio resident Nawaz Ahmeed.
It happened September 1999 at this house in Belmont County, where Ahmeed’s estranged wife lived with the couple’s two boys.
The weekend before their divorce was supposed to be finalized, Ahmeed unleashed a vicious attack, killing his wife Dr. Luba Ahmeed along with his wife’s father, sister and niece.
Cops say Ahmeed ambushed them after returning from Port Columbus International Airport. Court records show he bashed in their skulls, and slit their throats.
Just hours after the massacre, the Pakistani man was arrested at JFK airport in New York City.
Ahmeed and his two young sons were waiting to catch a flight to Pakistan. Attorney Grace Hoffman represented Luba Ahmeed in her divorce case. "I've never come across anybody that was that empty. Just a shell."
Ahmeed was convicted and sentenced to death.
That was 11-years-ago. Nawas Ahmeed is still alive and well at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. And how’s this for irony. ABC 6 investigators learned that this death row inmate just got a very expensive operation to save his life.
Sources say Ahmed recently had open heart by-pass surger at Ohio State University’s Ross Heart Hospital.
OSU says patient privacy laws prevents them from giving us any information including what Ahmeed’s operation cost ohio tax payers.
Ohio Department of Corrections says it’s bound by state and federal laws to provide prisoners health care.
Hoffman says that’s not right. “That’s sickening. Medical care’s one thing, but how far do you take it? How far do you take it? I think they went too far. That money could have gone to other people. It just makes us all sick."
ABC 6 did some more digging. The findings? Prisoner’s like Nawaz Ahmeed have great health care benefits.
Last year, Ohio’s Department of Corrections spent $188 million on prisoner health care. Tax dollars covered the tab.
Ahmeed has exhausted all of his appeals in Ohio. Baring the Governor’s Office sparing Ahmeed the death penalty, he will be executed.
