Summary
Palestinian detainee who died at Dhahiriyya military detention centre in October 1988; Al-Haq describes his case as “the main, precedent-setting case” in its work on deaths in detention and accountability for them (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.138, p.140).
Details
- His family, via al-Haq and after appeal to the Israeli High Court by the family’s Israeli lawyer, asked Scottish forensic pathologist Derrick Pounder to conduct a second autopsy some months after he had been buried (PDF p.138).
- Israeli lawyers Leah Tsemel and Felicia Langer acted for the family in addressing the Israeli authorities and the High Court (PDF p.139).
- Langer’s petition for a new investigation into his death was rejected by the High Court “despite overwhelming evidence, disclosed by Military Police investigators,” that he had been severely abused in detention; Langer concluded “not only was justice not seen to have been done, justice was not done at all” (PDF p.140).
- Pounder concluded the cause of death was asphyxiation due to ligature pressure on the neck, the mechanism more likely than not hanging, after three days of treatment “prima facie, cruel, inhuman and degrading”; the death was possibly an “aggravated suicide” and homicide could not be excluded (PDF p.140).
- Al-Haq’s report A Nation under Siege closed with his account, reproducing the organization’s 1989 Carter-Menil acceptance speech, which records that on 18 October 1988 he was seen by other detainees at Dhahiriyya with blood flowing from his head, screaming: “I am Ibrahim al-Mtour. They are beating me to death. Detainees, witness!” Three days later he was dead; “Suicide,” the prison authorities declared (PDF p.140).
- Hiltermann, on Shawan Jabarin’s 1989 beating, considered Jabarin might otherwise have been “another Ibrahim al-Mtour” (PDF p.171).
Related pages
Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, Derrick Pounder, Felicia Langer, Al-Haq