Hassan Turabi, 22, a resident of a village next to Nablus, died from cancer on Monday in Haemek Medical Centre, after being released unexpectedly by Israeli Prison Service (IPS) in early October this year, with severe and life-threatening internal bleeding. Hassan was arrested and held by the IPS from January 2013 to early October 2013 when he was suddenly released. According to information received by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR-Israel) from Hassan’s family and lawyers who dealt with his case and visited him in prison, a week before he was transferred to hospital and effectively abandoned by the prison service Turabi vomited blood on a daily basis. They indicated that it is possible that if he had been transferred to the hospital earlier, his death could have been prevented.

Hassan Turabi (Photo: Physicians for Human Rights)

Physicians for Human Rights strongly condemns the conduct of the IPS in this case and in similar cases where prisoners are released only when their condition deteriorates significantly to the degree that they are on their deathbed. Such behavior gives rise to the concern that the release of Turabi in a critical condition was timed to avoid any investigation of his death in custody, which IPS would have been obliged to do.