Abid Dkhili

Inside Prison

Abid Dkhili, a young Tunisian from the Melja El Kahla neighbourhood of Jendouba, was arrested ten days before his death on a charge of possession of cannabis, and was held in Bulla Regia civil prison pending trial. He died in suspicious circumstances at Jendouba hospital.
On 16 October 2024, his father Hassouna Dkhili and his aunt visited him; he was in good health and was not suffering from any illness, complaining only about the filth of the prison. On Saturday 19 October, prison officers took him to hospital in poor health, without informing the family, and a friend of his found him by chance in the emergency department, barely able to hold himself up, supported by two officers, his hands and legs bound in shackles and unable to speak. He was admitted to the emergency department, then put back in the prison van and taken to a dark room on the fourth floor, where his father and friends were prevented from entering to check on him, with one officer threatening to transfer him to Siliana prison if the family insisted on entering. He died the following day, and the family learned the news from his friend, not from any official source. A death certificate was issued stating that the cause of death was cardiac arrest, but the doctor who issued it had not been present while he was in the room, and she filled in his hospital admission form after his death. The father did not observe any signs of assault on the body apart from the marks of the shackles, which had not been removed even when he was admitted to hospital. Witnesses stated that prison officers assaulted him when he fell to his knees unable to walk and told him to get up. The death was followed by protests in the Melja El Kahla neighbourhood, followed by security raids and a campaign of indiscriminate arrests targeting minors and adults; ten people were charged with violent assault on a public official, participation in rebellion and forming a criminal association, and one of those arrested suffered serious damage to his eye.