Within hours of being arrested by French police on minor drug-related charges, Walid Ferdi was dead.
His cellmate, Badiaa El Massi, a Tunisian migrant arrested for living in France without a residency permit, lies in an artificial coma in a hospital bed in the town of Tours. Doctors say he is unlikely to survive long.
The two men had the misfortune of being held in the ageing Fresnes Prison, south of Paris, where, as prison authorities confirmed to Al Jazeera, there is no functioning fire alarm system.
Investigating police maintain that El Massi set his younger cellmate alight. El Massi’s family and lawyer, however, argue that it is more likely the two men set fire to their mattress as a form of protest against their detention.
Following an autopsy that revealed no traces of violence on his body, Ferdi’s family is pressing for homicide charges to be levelled against whoever in the prison is found responsible, on the grounds that his death was caused by poor safety and the guards’ failure to react to the fire promptly.
Just how long the two men were locked in the 9m2 cell, breathing in the fire’s deadly fumes on the evening of June 30 is not yet clear, but the medical evidence suggests prolonged exposure to the smoke.
Ferdi, a French citizen born to Algerian parents and raised in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, died of smoke inhalation. It was the first time he had been arrested. His alleged crime was to have sold a small amount of cannabis resin, a local website reported [FR].
The 22-year-old died in the prison not long after the cell door was opened and efforts to revive him failed. Al Jazeera was unable to reach his family or lawyer.
Categories: France, Human Rights