JAILED arms dealer Peter Bleach is refusing to be treated for tuberculosis in protest at the Indian Authorities' handling of his case, the Foreign Office confirmed today.

Bleach, a former pupil of St Peter's School in York, has been ill with TB since December last year.

He threatened to refuse treatment after the condition was diagnosed last March, when he feared his medication would not be provided regularly, affecting its ability to work.

A Foreign Office spokesman today said Bleach, who lived at Fylingthorpe, near Whitby, had been refusing his medication "for some time."

He said: "Obviously we are extremely concerned about his condition, this is a serious situation. He is unhappy with the handling of his case and so has decided to protest in this way.

"We have tried to persuade him not to and will continue to do so but that is the decision he has taken.

"We are in regular contact with the British Embassy in India, where staff are monitoring the situation."

Bleach's mother Oceania, speaking from her home at Brompton-by-Sawdon, near Scarborough, said today: "This is really very terrible. The trouble is once one stops taking the medication the whole course is cancelled out and the tuberculosis can become resistant to that type of medicine.

"I do not know how my son's spirits are as I have not heard from him for some time, he has been too ill to write.

"For me there are only prayers left. That is all I have."

Bleach has been in an Indian prison for more than seven years for his part in dropping arms to rebels in West Bengal. He is serving life.

The five Latvian men convicted alongside him are now free after intervention by their President.

Updated: 11:49 Wednesday, October 30, 2002