Wrongly convicted boxer's cancer battle

The former boxer, 74, whose story has been immortalised in the Bob Dylan song Hurricane and in a Hollywood film, was diagnosed with the illness last year.

His best friend and co-accused, John Artis, revealed the tragic news when he spoke alongside Carter at a gala dinner at Burswood on Friday night for the International Justice Conference.

Mr Artis told The Sunday Times, despite being gravely ill, the 74-year-old was determined to continue with his work and had used the JusticeWA event as motivation to rebuild his health.

He explained when he first visited Carter after learning of his disease, his friend could not walk and barely talk.

But he now was much stronger thanks to his desire to speak at the WA event.

``Coming to Perth was his motivation,'' Mr Artis said. "I found out about his illness about eight months ago and was told (by doctors) there was nothing more they could do.

"At that point Rubin could not walk or talk. He only weighed 105 pounds.

“So I said to him what do you want to do and he said to me that he wanted to be able to ‘walk, talk and go back to work’.

“He said he had to come here. He told me he to come to Australia , for JusticeWA."

Mr Carter was one of a number of high-profile guests who took part in the three-day conference at Burswood over the weekend.

And while spoke at the black-tie dinner of Friday evening, the Hurricane did not attend the conference yesterday and was believed to be resting. Both he and Mr Artis are is due to fly out of Perth on Tuesday.

Mr Artis, who has known Carter for almost 50 years, told The Sunday Times that when he learned how ill his friend was, he immediately took a leave of absence from his job in the US to take care of him in Toronto.

Since then, he said, Carter, who has been campaigning on behalf of the wrongly convicted for the past 20 years, had improved significantly and as a result he was even more determined to carry on his work, despite having a terminal illness.

``Rubin has come to grips with his disease,'' he said. ``He is fine with it now. But he is not going to give up. He is just looking to go until he can't go any longer.

``And while I try not to think about him going. When his torch burns out I will pick up that torch and keep going til my torch burns out.

``But as for right now, Rubin isn't thinking like that. I heard him say to someone the other day that he ain't got time to die. That is what he is like.''