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Jerusalem: 11
November, 1997
Two PA Prisoners
Dead Allegedly After Heart Attacks
Both Older Men Held at Nablus Central Prison
Nafe’a
Hassan Mardawi age 50, father of 7, was arrested on June 15
1997 by the Preventative Security Service (PSS) - by the
officer Rafe’a Dwiekat, the head of the PSS in Qalqilya.
Mardawi was a resident of Hableh village near Qalqiliya. He
was suspected of land dealing with Israelis. He suffered
from heart disease for many years. During his detention he
was hospitalized three times for the deterioration of his
medical condition. For the first three months of his
detention, he was not allowed any visits from his family or
from an attorney. He died two days ago, on November 9.
The Palestinian
Police used to contact his family to get medicine for him -
the prison authorities did not take any responsibility for
his medical condition. The family approached the Nablus
prosecutor, Ilias al-Jalad and asked for Mardawi to be
released on bail. The prosecutor refused. No charges were
filed, and Mardawi was not brought before a judge. A
relative told the PHRMG that she saw the body and did not
notice any signs of torture.
On November 9,
the family heard from the head of the village council that
Mardawi had died in prison, and they were told to come
yesterday to bury him. The family thinks that his death is
the result of medical negligence. When his body was brought
to the village, the village Imam refused to wash the body
and give it rites last rites. The local mosque was locked to
prevent it from being used in connection with the burial.
Local Waqf officials said that an order had been received
not to wash him or pray over him. This makes it difficult to
hold a funeral. There has been no autopsy to determine the
cause of death, and no one in the prosecutor’s office of the
PA has contacted the family for this purpose.
When he was
visited in prison, Mardawi complained about the prison
conditions, saying that they were not appropriate for a sick
man. He reported that he was tied up (shabeh) on the first
night. In the morning he was unconscious, and transferred to
the hospital. From the hospital he was taken to Nablus
Central Prison, where he was not apparently abused. Sameh
Kan’an, head of the PSS in Nablus, told reporters that he
died of a heart attack. Today the news appeared on the
foreign news services and the Israeli press, but not in any
Palestinian newspaper.
On October 14,
1997, the PHRMG learned that Ibrahim Suleiman Ahmad
al-Sheikh, 65, resident of Saniria village near Tulkarm, and
a prisoner in Nablus Central Prison. The man was arrested on
July 10, 1997 by the PSS. On October 10, he was transferred
to al-Watani hospital in Nablus after having lost
consciousness. He never returned to consciousness, and died
on October 14. The PA did not release any news of the death,
and the Palestinian press has not reported it.
The PHRMG is
concerned, that as a consequence of the general lawlessness
of the Palestinian legal system, security services, and
prisons, two mechanisms are not functioning that may have
saved the lives of Mardawi and al-Sheikh. Firstly, in the
case of elderly prisoners with a clear history of medical
problems, bail should have been an option until a future
trial. Secondly, the prison authorities have the obligation
to protect the health of its prisoners. If it cannot meet
that challenge, then ill prisoners must be released
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