The UK has expressed its concern at the death of Arafat Gradat who died in Israeli detention last Saturday.And how well is the enlightened UK treating its own detainees?
“It is important that the Israeli authorities conduct a full investigation into the circumstances of his death," a UK foreign Office spokesperson told Ahram Online. This investigation should include the Palestinian allegations of mistreatment of Garadat, he added.
Garadat”s family says their son, 30, died from torture in the Israeli Megiddo prison.
Israel Prison Service, however, says Garadat died because of what appeared to be a heart attack.
A total of 333 people have died in or following police custody over the past 11 years, but no officer has ever been successfully prosecuted, according to a watchdog's report.
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1,433 people in England and Wales have died either in police custody or following other police contact since 1990, according to data compiled by Inquest, a charity specialising in the investigation of contentious deaths.
950 deaths took place in custody, 317 following a police pursuit, 112 were the result of a road traffic incident involving a police vehicle and 54 were police shootings.
The highest total was recorded in 2003, when 104 such deaths were recorded. Fourteen of these fell within the operational jurisdiction of the Metropolitan police, of which one was a shooting.
In 2011 there were 23 deaths in police custody, seven following police pursuit, one involving a police vehicle and two from shooting.
Keep in mind that these victims were not in prison, and had not yet been charged with any crime when they died. In other words, many of them were in administrative detention.
I call for 1,433 full-blown international inquiries into the circumstances of each and every one of these deaths in the UK, and international sanctions if any of them are proven negligent or malicious by teams of third party investigators whose own political views must be ignored when choosing them.
I mean, it's only fair.
(h/t Anne, Petra)