CAIRO
A leading member of Egypt's outlawed Gamaa Islamiya group has died in prison amid a spate of recent deaths among jailed opponents of the country’s ruling regime.
In a Sunday statement, Gamaa Islamiya announced that Essam Derbala had passed away in southern Cairo’s notorious Al-Aqrab Prison.
“He was denied medical treatment, causing him to fall into a coma and subsequently die,” the statement read.
There has been no comment by the Egyptian authorities regarding Derbala's death. But an official security source, speaking anonymously to Anadolu Agency, asserted that Derbala had passed away due to “natural” causes.
Derbala, who had been an ally of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, had been detained on charges of belonging to an “outlawed” group.
Derbala’s demise comes following the death of two other jailed opponents of the Egyptian regime.
Earlier this month, Gamaa Islamiya leader Ezzat al-Salamouni also died in a prison hospital.
Gamaa Islamiya sources had said at the time that al-Salamouni – who had been detained for committing alleged acts of “violence” – had likewise passed away due to “medical negligence”.
Around the same time, another detainee, Ahmed Hussein Ghozlan, died in a prison in the Nile Delta’s Behira province, also, according to defense lawyers, as a result of “medical negligence” by the authorities.
Ghozlan, 52, had been jailed on charges of belonging to the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which the authorities designated a “terrorist group” in late 2013.
Egypt has been dogged by turmoil since the military ousted and imprisoned Mohamed Morsi – Egypt’s first freely elected president and a Muslim Brotherhood leader – in mid-2013.
According to Human Rights Watch, a total of 95 detainees died in Egyptian prisons last year alone.
