NEW HYDE PARK — At about the same time an 11-year-old Iraqi boy was on an operating table having heart surgery on Long Island last week, the widow of an Army captain abducted and slain in Iraq was opening a package at her home in California.

It was her husband’s personal effects, including a hand-held Sony PlayStation video game that Captain Brian Freeman played with during down time while on patrol in Iraq.

Yesterday, Charlotte Freeman fought back tears as she presented the gadget to the smiling, gum-chewing boy named Ali as a token of what she hoped would be a lifelong friendship that began between the boy and her husband in Iraq.

Brian Freeman was killed in Karbala by Iraqi militants on January 20 when insurgents launched a bold sneak attack on the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city in which four American servicemen were abducted and killed. Earlier that same day he learned that Ali had received the paperwork needed to visit America for surgery.

After he was killed, members of Freeman’s unit and his widow both contacted Gift of Life International to ensure that Ali would indeed receive the promised surgery.

Ali, whose last name was withheld to protect relatives in Iraq who fear reprisals, and his father were flown to Long Island this month, where he received the life-saving heart surgery at Schneider Children’s Hospital.

The trip was made possible in no small part by Freeman, a West Point graduate and Army reservist from Temecula, Calif., who met Ali and his father in Iraq. He contacted Gift of Life, which helped raise $10,000 to pay travel and medical costs for Ali and another boy who has not yet arrived in America.

“I want to thank ‘Brian’s Army’ for completing this promise he made to Ali,” Charlotte Freeman said during brief remarks at a news conference in the hospital cafeteria. She and Brian Freeman had two children together, Gunnar, 3, and 1-year-old Ingrid.

She said in preparing to meet Ali, she wanted to bring him a gift. “When Brian’s personal effects came in it just was there and it hit me that was something I should bring. I think it’s a lot more personal. It was something that Brian actually had.”

Ali, dressed in a gray sweater and white T-shirt, spoke through an interpreter in thanking the Freemans, hospital staff and others. But when he was presented with a stuffed bear from a representative of Ronald McDonald House, he did manage a meek “thank you” in English.

Physicians said they repaired a hole between the upper chambers of Ali’s heart that extended into the valves.

“Our expectation for Ali is that he will make a complete recovery,” said Dr. Frederick Bierman, who noted that the youngster’s surgery went so well he was able to be released from the hospital last Saturday.