The Palestinian Authority said on Wednesday that a Hamas supporter who was found dead in one of its prisons in the West Bank had committed suicide and did not die as a result of torture. Muhammad Abed Haj, 30, from Jalkamus, near Jenin, was found dead in his prison cell last week. PA security officers said he had hanged himself by tying a cloth around his neck.
However, Hamas and Haj's family rejected the PA's version, insisting that his death was the result of brutal torture while he was held in solitary confinement. The family released a number of photos showing bruises and cuts on different parts on his body.
The PA leadership in Ramallah strongly denied that its security forces were torturing detainees, dubbing the allegations as "Hamas fabrications and lies."
A PA security source told The Jerusalem Post that Haj was "not an innocent man," as one of his relatives confessed that he had delivered to him an M-16 rifle.
One of Haj's brothers, Abdel Baset, is a top Hamas operative who is in an Israeli prison. Haj is the second detainee to die in a PA prison in the past 12 months. The first victim was Majd Barghouti, an imam from Kobar, near Ramallah.