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Second Salafist inmate dies

November 17, 2012

A Tunisian Salafist who had been jailed for his alleged role in an attack on the US embassy in September has died while on hunger strike. He is the second Salafist prisoner to die in Tunisia in as many days.

https://p.dw.com/p/16ksN
Tunisian protesters burn the U.S. flag during a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in Tunis September 12, 2012. Tunisian police fired teargas and rubber bullets into the air on Wednesday to disperse a protest over a U.S.-made film depicting the Prophet Mohammad near the U.S. Embassy in the capital Tunis, a Reuters reporter said. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi (TUNISIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST RELIGION)
Image: Reuters

Muhammed Bakhti's lawyer and Tunisia's justice ministry confirmed that the Salafist had died in hospital, two days after fellow Islamist Bechir Gholli died; Gholli had refused to eat for nearly two months. 

“It's a shame that Tunisians die in prison after the revolution," Bakhti's lawyer, Anouar Aouled Ali, told the news agency Reuters.

The pair had insisted on their innocence and protested against their prison conditions. They were among more than 100 people arrested in Tunis in September when protestors angered by an anti-Islam move made in California attacked the US embassy.

Bakhti and Gholli had both began their hunger strike almost immediately after their arrests. The protest on September 14 led to the ransacking of the US embassy. 

Bakhti was believed to have been a prominent figure in the Salafist movement and to have had close relations with the organizer of the attack, Abu Iyad, who remains at large.

sej/ipj (AFP, Reuters)