Manama: Bahrain’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) has ruled out any criminal suspicion in the death of a detainee last month, saying that his death was from natural causes.

The SIU said in a statement that it reached its conclusions after questioning all the detainees held in the same prison ward as Hassan Al Haiki, as well as some of his relatives and the on-duty physicians, guards and police staff with none of them reporting any injury on the detainee who was declared dead on July 30, it added.

Al Haiki was arrested on July 4 in relation to a case of a bomb explosion on June 30. One Bahraini woman was killed and her children were injured as she was driving near the village of Al Ekr, south of the capital Manama.

“The SIU listened to the statements of his father, wife and sister of the detainee who concurred they had not noticed any injuries on him when they visited him while he was in detention,” Eisa Al Mannai, from the SIU, said in a statement carried by Bahrain News Agency (BNA) on Wednesday.

“The SIU also heard the statements of the Detention Centre’s on-duty physician, guards and police personnel who said they transferred the detainee to the clinic immediately after the other detainees in the same ward called for assistance. He was shifted to hospital where he died. The SIU viewed the minutes of the Public Prosecution’s questioning of the detainee on July 12 for his involvement in a terror case. It also viewed the July 10 police questioning report. Neither record mentioned he was subjected to any torture or maltreatment. The prosecution agent did not notice any visible injuries on him at that time.”

The SIU said that it also viewed the report compiled by the assigned forensic doctor who examined the detainee at that time and that it did not find “any indication of any sign or trace of criminal violence, resistance or scuffle.”

The officers who arrested and detained him were also asked and they both dismissed any sort of torture, maltreatment of the detainee during his arrest and detention processes, the statement added.

“The forensic doctor assigned by the SIU to examine the deceased’s body concluded that there was a myocardial infarction (blockage) of the arteries feeding the heart muscle. His death was the result of a cardiac arrest, which concurs with the symptoms sustained by the deceased before his death and mentioned by his fellow detainees.

The SIU assigned the Criminology Lab to examine the deceased’s attire, and the tests proved they did not have any traces of blood. The SIU ordered a judicial police investigations in the case. Investigations concluded that the detainee was not subjected to any sort of harsh or inhumane treatment and that there were no criminal suspicions in his death,” the SIU said.

Al Mannai said that the SIU noticed that the deceased’s photo appeared on several social media websites that deliberately concocted false information for thrill or propaganda.

“Such baseless allegations are denied by the video and the pictures of the deceased taken before and after the autopsy and which clearly prove there were no injuries,” he said.