CAIRO: An Egyptian official denied on Tuesday that the brother of a senior Hamas member died of torture in an Egyptian prison cell.
Sami Abu Zuhri, one of the Islamist group s chief spokesmen in the Gaza Strip, said his brother Yousef died of torture on Monday.
He told a press conference Yousef was subjected to brutal torture in an Egyptian prison that led to severe bleeding.
He added that his brother was briefly treated at Egypt s Alexandria University hospital but was returned to his cell before the bleeding had been stanched.
Interior ministry spokesman General Hamdi Abdel Karim denied that Abu Zuhri died from torture, saying he died a natural death from a drop in blood circulation, without elaborating on the causes.
A security official said Zuhri suffered from liver and heart diseases and was transferred to a prison hospital at the end of September.
An autopsy said he died of natural causes, said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
Abu Zuhri was arrested in April in the town of Al-Arish, near the border with Gaza. He was accused of slipping into Egypt through one of the smuggling tunnels that link the Hamas-ruled enclave with Egypt.
He was identified by officials from the rival Fatah party who resided in the town after they were routed from Gaza when Hamas seized the coastal strip in 2007, security officials there said.
Sami Abu Zuhri told Al-Jazeera television that his brother was residing legally in Al-Arish and called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose government is mediating a unity deal between Hamas and Fatah, to investigate the death.
Rights groups say torture is routine in Egyptian prisons.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said in a report this year that 13 Egyptians died of torture between June 2008 and February 2009. Police are rarely prosecuted for abusing prisoners. -AFP
