The family of a Palestinian man arrested as a spy in Turkey have rejected the claim that he committed suicide in prison and accused Turkish authorities of killing him.
Zaki Mubarak was found hanging from the bathroom door in his one-person cell in Silivri prison, west of Istanbul, when guards arrived to give him food on Sunday morning, according to the Istanbul prosecutor's office, which gave his name as Zaki Y M Hasan
Turkey announced the arrest of “two alleged intelligence operatives” on April 19 who were charged with international, political and military espionage.
The nationality of the men was not revealed but state broadcaster TRT's Arabic service said both carried Palestinian passports. It said Mubarak was a 55-year-old retired major general and a senior intelligence official.
Mubarak's son Yusuf told Al Arabiya TV his father had gone to Turkey to search for a job and the family had lost contact with him on April 7.
“My father travelled to Turkey to make a living, to build us a future. We were surprised by his arrest ... and we were more shocked by the false accusations against him,” Yusuf said.
He said his father was a victim and “a scapegoat in a political conflict”.
He said he wanted his father's body sent home and urged Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and world powers to intervene.
Zakaria Mubarak, the dead man's brother, told Al Arabiya that he had contacted the Palestinian ambassador in Ankara and informed him of the disappearance of Zaki and his friend, Samer Shaaban, in April.
“I told him that they disappeared from a certain restaurant in Istanbul. I told him to look for Turkish security in the city which is full of cameras, but nothing happened, and 15 days later, the Turkish authorities called them two Emirati spies,” he said.
He questioned how "two people who don’t speak Turkish" could spy in Turkey.
“Turkey deceived us and betrayed the Palestinian people for political gains and objectives,” he said.
Turkish media outlets have run a number of contradictory and speculative stories about the case since it was first reported earlier this month.
