2Bahrain opposition supporters die police custody

The interior ministry said the body of Rashid Zakaria Hassan, 40, was found in a detention facility and a medical examiner determined that he died of complications from sickle-cell anemia.

Hassan was detained April 2 on charges of "inciting hatred, publishing false news, promoting sectarianism and calling for overthrowing of the regime" on social networking sites, the interior ministry said.

The opposition party, Al-Wefaq, said the death occurred in "mysterious circumstances."

The interior ministry said another detainee, Ali Isa Saqer, 31, died on Saturday in police custody after "creating chaos at the detention center."

Activists believe both men were subjected to physical and mental abuse and might have died as a result, said Nabeel Rajab of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

"We believed they killed them in prison," Rajab said.

The interior ministry said Saqer was hurt while resisting guards' attempts to restrain him and he died in a hospital.

Saqer was detained March 13 for attempted murder of a policeman, it said.

Authorities also detained and beat a prominent human rights activist as they waged a continuing widespread crackdown on the opposition in this tiny Gulf nation, a Bahraini human rights group and his relatives said.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights said Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who formerly worked for international human rights organizations, was detained on Saturday in a pre-dawn raid. Al-Khawaja's daughter, Zainab, confirmed the arrest and said her father was taken from her house in a Shiite village outside the capital, Manama. Continued…