The family of a Palestinian detainee in Turkey, Ankara claimed to have committed suicide in his prison, Turkish security responsible for his killing, while a human rights organization condemned torture "young man arrested to death."
News websites reported information about the suicide of Zaki Mubarak Hassan in a prison in Turkey, days after he was arrested on espionage charges that his family repeatedly asserted was fabricated and not based on any evidence.
Later, the official Anatolia news agency confirmed the suicide of one of the two men who were arrested in Istanbul, hanging in the Salivri prison, without giving further details on how the man managed to hang himself inside the cell.
Ankara did not provide any evidence to support its story that the Palestinian had committed suicide and that he was not killed by an act, reinforcing the story of the family of the victim, who accused the Turkish regime of his liquidation, after failing to extract confessions of the crime of espionage he did not commit.
Zaki's brother said in a video posted on his Facebook account that Zaki had not committed suicide, pointing out that he had a recorded conversation with his brother's lawyer.
He added that he has documents confirming the innocence of his brother, pointing out that he had informed the Palestinian ambassador in Turkey of his fears of the Turkish authorities' attempt to liquidate Zaki, but the latter did not act, he said.
He expressed his fear that the second detainee, Samer Samih Shaaban, would face the fate of Zaki, in an attempt by Ankara to blur the fact that the two men are innocent of these "fabricated charges."
Yusuf, the son of Zaki Mubarak, called for an international committee to investigate the killing of his father.
"The father was a victim and a scapegoat in a political struggle to cover Turkey for its disappointment," he said, adding that his father had not committed suicide.
The family of the other young Palestinian appealed to the world to protect her son, who is being held in Turkey's prisons without any real signs condemning him, at a time when the Arab organization denounced "Turkish security torture of Palestinian detainee Zaki Mubarak to death". The organization called on the "Special Rapporteur on Torture to send a committee to examine the body of the detainee, not to allow the Turkish authorities to conceal the crime and bury the body without a neutral autopsy by the United Nations."
A number of Turkish and international human rights organizations have documented cases of torture in Turkish intelligence prisons.