An investigation into the death in custody of a soldier who stabbed and wounded Comoran President Azali Assoumani has been closed, the public prosecutor announced Wednesday, without giving any indication of how he died.The 24-year-old soldier was arrested immediately after he wounded Assoumani in a knife attack on September 13 and found dead the following morning in his holding cell where he had been in solitary confinement.”When investigators arrived to interview him… they found the young man lying down, lifeless,” the Moroni public prosecutor’s office said in a statement published in state-owned newspaper Al-Watwan.A military doctor estimated the time of death at 2:00 am, it said. “There were no wounds from firearms or blunt or sharp weapons. Based on these elements, the public prosecutor’s office considers that there is no reason to pursue the investigation,” the statement said.Authorities handed the body of Ahmed Abdou to his family immediately after his death, ruling out the possibility of an autopsy. According to Islam, the religion of most of the 870,000 inhabitants of the Comoros, bodies must be buried within 24 hours of death.Asked by AFP about a separate investigation into the circumstances and motive behind the attack on the 65-year-old president, the prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond. Rights groups and opposition groups criticised the closure of the inquiry without any findings as a denial of justice. The investigation was not impartial, and authorities did not question those who arrested or held the attacker in jail, lawyer and human rights defender Gerard Youssouf said.The Moroni public prosecutor’s office “closed an investigation that never took place”, he said.Two opposition parties, Orange and Ushe, also protested. The prosecutor’s office did not answer the many questions around the death in custody, said Orange leader Daoudou Abdallah Mohamed, who ran against Assoumani in the January presidential election.Newly created party Ushe alleged that legal and medical procedures were not followed and the inquiry was not undertaken seriously.The re-election of Assoumani, a former military ruler who came to power in a coup in 1999, was highly contested and followed by two days of deadly protests. The president of the Indian Ocean archipelago has been accused of growing authoritarianism.
