Time: 2:30pm (Jerusalem time)

At 5pm on Wednesday, 20 June 2018, doctors at Al Najar Hospital in Rafah pronounced dead Walid Al-Doheni, a 28-year-old resident of Thabbit Zare’ in east Rafah. He was being detained in a police station there. Ayman Al-Batniji, a spokesperson for Palestinian police in Gaza, stated that Al-Doheni had hung himself while in police custody and added that an investigation has been launched into the incident.

Al Mezan’s documentation shows that at 10am on Sunday, 17 June 2018, Al-Doheni was arrested at his house by the drug control personnel of the Palestinian police, who also inspected the house. Al-Doheni was presented to the public prospection on Tuesday, 19 June 2018.

Mohammed Al-Doheni, the 26-year-old brother of the detainee, provided the following testimony:

On Tuesday, 19 June 2018, I went to the public prosecution office in Rafah, before which my brother, Walid, would be presented. The prosecution ruled for his release on the basis of lack of evidence [against him], unless he was wanted for other charges. I went back to the police station where he was still detained, to continue his release procedures. At the end of these procedures, Walid prepared himself to leave, but the police informed him that he was wanted by the intelligence apparatus in North Gaza on separate charges. He was again arrested, and I went back home. At about 4:40pm on Wednesday, 20 June 2018, Walid’s friend, Hammad Hammad, 26, called me while he was visiting Walid in the police station and informed me that Walid was sick and had been sent to Abu Yousef Al Najar Hospital. I accompanied him to the hospital to see Walid, and I learned there that my brother had hung himself. Hammad told me that he had seen my brother when the policeman opened the jail cell’s door; Walid was hanging by a yellow rope tied around his neck and to the cell’s window. Walid’s body was close to the floor; his back was about ten centimeters above the floor, and his legs were spread and forward.

On the morning of Thursday, 21 June 2018, Walid’s body was presented for forensic analysis at a unit in Gaza city, where the doctor said Walid had died from suffocation by hanging.

Al Mezan regrets the incident that took place inside the place of detention and demands that the competent authorities launch an urgent, effective and transparent investigation to assess whether the proper arrest and detention procedures were followed by law enforcement and that justice is served in the case of lapse in those procedures.

End