TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A prisoner who had been on a two-month hunger strike after his arrest on charges of attacking the United States Embassy in Tunis in September died on Saturday, his lawyer said. He was the second person on a hunger strike detained in the attack, incited by an anti-Muslim film produced in the United States, to die this week.
The prisoner, Mohammed Bakhti, a prominent member of the ultraconservative Muslim Salafi movement, was admitted to intensive care days earlier after complications resulting from his hunger strike, said the lawyer, Abdel-Basset Ben Mbarek. Mr. Mbarek also represented the other detainee, Bachir al-Gholi, who died Thursday after a heart attack brought on by his own hunger strike.
The two men had proclaimed their innocence, and Mr. Mbarek accused the authorities of responding too late to their grave condition.
Since the fall of Tunisia’s hard-line secular dictatorship in January 2011, there has been a resurgence of conservative Islamic movements in Tunisia. Salafis have attacked art galleries and cultural institutes for perceived insults to Islam, culminating in the Sept. 14 assault on the United States Embassy over the amateur film, which insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
Security forces killed four people in the attack. The area around the embassy was damaged, and an American school was gutted.
About 425 suspects were rounded up in the aftermath of the attack, with 225 remaining in custody, according to Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri.
The minister, speaking at a news conference on Friday, said he regretted the death of Mr. Gholi and deplored the use of hunger strikes as a protest. He said the death would be investigated.
The Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights has called for an independent investigation.
2nd Tunisian Man Held in Embassy Attack Dies
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2nd Tunisian Man Held in Embassy Attack Dies
