RABAT - A Moroccan prisoner died as hundreds of jailed Islamists across the country pursued a hunger strike for their release, human rights bodies, officials and family members said Wednesday.
The unlimited hunger strike by prisoners began May 2 in jails including Sale, Fes, Meknes, Oujda, Marrakesh and Agadir, according to the independence Moroccan Human Rights Association.
The association said one inmate, Khalid Boukri, 28, died Tuesday in the prison at Outita, in the centre of the country, and called for an impartial investigation to establish the facts.
One of Boukri's sisters was quoted in the Islamist Attadjid daily Wednesday as saying that he had suffered from intestinal problems, but his health had deteriorated after he began refusing food.
However a statement from the prosecutor's office in Meknes said Boukri was not one of those on hunger strike, adding that he had a disease of the digestive system that received regular treatment from the prison doctor.
An autopsy and inquiry had been ordered and their results would be published, the statement added.
Hundreds of Islamic militants were rounded up under an anti-terrorist law rushed through parliament in the wake of the suicide bombings in Casablanca which killed 45 people in May 2003.
A total of 2,112 were charged with various offences, of whom 903 were sentenced, 17 of them to the death penalty.
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