RUF official dies in prison

Revolutionary United Front Secretary-General Solomon Rogers died in prison on Saturday, humanitarian sources said in confirmation of news reports. The BBC reported prison officials as saying he died of hypertension and malaria. One humanitarian source told IRIN he was hospitalised in May, but could not say for what ailment. Recently, RUF has been voicing its concern about the welfare of its detainees and some reported deaths. Human Rights Watch Information Officer Corinne Dufka told IRIN the non-governmental body was “very concerned” by the deaths of all prisoners, not just the RUF. “There’s a worrying high level of deaths in detention,” she said. Nine other prisoners have already died this year in Pademba Road Prison, a relic of the colonial era. Human Rights Watch is yet to investigate extensively into the cause of the deaths and how many are RUF. Rogers and several other RUF officials were imprisoned after the organization’s fighters detained some 500 UN troops in May 2000. Before that, Rogers served as secretary of state for lands and the environment during the 11-month rule of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council that ended on 22 April 1998, Sierra Leone Web, an internet news service provider, reported. He was also a member of the RUF delegation that negotiated the Lome Peace Accord with the Freetown government in 1999, it said.