The death of Mudathir Kamal inside an Imtidad police station raises worries over police brutality in the country.
AlTaghyeer: Amal Muhammad al-Hassan
Mudathir Kamal (29) walked into the police station on 11 Oct, only to come out of it as a cadaver. His family has refused to receive the dead body from the morgue unless a final autopsy takes place.
Kamal had not spent more than 24 hours in the precinct before his death was revealed to his family.
The Police’s Story
The police stated that Mudathir had criminal complaints filed against him which warranted his arrest, while Awad Muhammad, his cousin, said that the deceased had issues between himself and some of the Imtidad precinct policemen.
“We don’t know the reason for those issues, and [Mudathir’s] house is very near from the police station,” Awad said.
Awad also revealed to AlTaghyeer that his cousin was arrested at the Sitteen street; an area well-beyond the jurisdiction of the Imtidad police.
On Friday, the police said in a statement that it had immediately taken all necessary measures and stressed its commitment to impartiality by handing over the case to the district attorney’s office for ” follow-up investigation.”
Mudathir’s family said that the police at the Sahafa area had refused to have their son’s body in their station due to signs of torture that appeared on him.
The Arrest
According to Malaz, Mudathir’s sister, his mother had called him to tell him that their house had been robbed, prompting him to leave the Abu Adam area late at night to deliver some friends to a nearby area before moving towards his house.
His car however stopped abruptly after running out of fuel as per his sister.
Speaking to AlTaghyeer, she said that her brother had stopped a motorist on the road to ask him to help him with some gasoline to help him leave. This happened at around 4 AM.
Mudathir was then shocked when the motorist asked him “are you Mudathir Kamal?”, and when he answered affirmatively , the motorist handcuffed him and took him to the Imtidad police station.
“They did not place him in lock-up, they took him to the investigation offices immediately,” Malaz continued.
The victim’s sister confirmed that her other brother had been told to go away more than once when he went to inquire about him at the station.
“He took some food for Mudathir at around 11 am, but they [Imtidad police] took the food from him and prevented him from entering. Despite that, he returned again in the afternoon and was made to go away again.”
The Accused
The sister of the dead man notes that the members of the Imtidad department then came to their house notify the family that their son had passed away.
The police had contacted one of his friends and told him that he had died a natural death inside the station.
When his family rushed to the department to see their son, a lieutenant told them that their son had died of a drug overdose.
“My father asked him, Are you a doctor?,” she said.
The family then learned that members from the police department tried to hand Mudathir’s dead body over to the Sahafa police department, who turned them away due to “obvious signs of torture,” according to Malaz’s testimonies.
“They told us that they tried to save him and took him to the Ibrahim Malik Hospital. We made inquired inside the hospital and they denied they ever came.”
Torture
After Mudathir’s family arrived at the Umbada morgue, they found blood on his nose and marks indicating beating on his found. They also found him stripped of his clothes, which, according to Mudathir’s relatives, the police had taken and confiscated.
The autopsy took place on Wednesday afternoon, with 5 members from the deceased’s family, a doctor, as well as 3 emergency lawyers were present. Director of the Umbadah mortuary, Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Al-Sheikh, was also present.
The family refused to receive the body after it was discovered that samples from the stomach, blood and urine samples, had been taken as forensic evidence.
In front of the mortuary, a group of protesters, friends and family, gathered and demanded justice, at the behest of the emergency lawyers in Sudan.
“Mudathir’s father and uncle insisted that he should be buried, but the samples taken led the [emergency] lawyers to suspect the police’s intentions was to to attribute the cause of death to a drug dose, as the officer had told the deceased’s father on the night of the accident.”
Awad, the cousin, ruled out that Mudathir had died from an overdose, revealing that the Umbada morgue director said during the autopsy that the coronary artery was open, explaining that if the cause of death was a drug dose, it would cause it to close or constrict.
According to the emergency lawyers, the samples taken were unlawful; Samples were requested from the head of the department, who ranked as major. The correct procedure, as per him, is for the prosecution to request that examination.
Toxicology Report
The toxicology report, which is supposed to be issued after 48 hours, was delayed. A whole week passed since the death of Mudassir Kamal inside the Imtidad precinct, and his body is still in the Umbada mortuary awaiting the toxicology report for which the police had submitted the samples.
In a statement on October 13, the emergency lawyers confirmed that the autopsy doctors admitted that there were traces of violence and torture on the deceased; which suggests that he was killed during torture administered by the Imtidad guards.
The family of the deceased, according to cousin Awad, had asked the morgue for a preliminary report –which was issued last Thursday –but they refused it on account of it being signed by only one doctor.
Both the causes of arrest and death are still a mystery, even to his family, who were expecting their son to be released on the same day.
Everyone now sits in uncertainty waiting for the final report, the funeral, the identity of the culprit and the cause of death. What is certain, however, is that the death of Mudathir Kamal will add fuel to the fire in terms of the relationship between the people, and the police with its notoriety for violence against peaceful protesters and detainees.
