New details emerge about death of Brotherhood detainees

The privately-owned Al-Watan newspaper has published what it alleges are new details surrounding the death of 36 Morsi supporters in a prison van on Sunday.

According to an unnamed police major who was tasked with transporting 612 detainees to the Abu Zaabal Prison, the men were held in poorly ventilated, overcrowded prison trucks for three hours before their deaths.

The police officer and others involved in transporting the men had demanded of Interior Ministry superiors that the men be moved during the curfew for security reasons, a request that was refused.

The detainees were moved in five prison trucks at 7 am on Sunday. They reached the prison at 8.30 am, where the prison director refused to allow the vans to enter because there was no room for the detainees. This situation continued until 11 am leading detainees held in the trucks to protest.

When a policeman opened the door of the truck, he was taken hostage by the detainees. A special operations officer responded by spraying “a substance used in self-defense inside the van” and was able to rescue the hostage.

Teargas was then sprayed inside the trucks. The officer says that firearms were not used to quell the detainees and that they all died as a result of suffocation. 

In addition to conflicting reports from the government and supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the detainees, the official account itself remains unclear.