MAJDAL ANJAR, Lebanon, Sept 28 (AFP) - After overnight riots, thousands of Lebanese staged a protest Tuesday over the death in custody of a suspected Al-Qaeda leader arrested for alleged bomb plots against Western embassies.
Protestors in Majdal Anjar, a town on the border with Syria, called for the resignation of Interior Minister Elias Murr and for an independent legal and medical probe into the death of Lebanese Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib.
Khatib, described by Lebanese authorities as the top operative in Lebanon of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, was among 10 people detained last week over alleged plans to blow up the Italian embassy in Beirut.
He died on Monday at the age of 31 after suffering what the Lebanese security services said was a "massive heart attack."
When news of his death reached his hometown of Majdal Anjar in the eastern Bekaa valley, protestors took to the streets, hurling stones and bottles at Lebanese border checkpoints.
On Tuesday, residents and clergymen gathered in and around the Bilal bin Rabah mosque in central Majdal Anjar, a sleepy conservative Sunni Muslim town extending to the Masnaa border point leading into neighboring Syria.
The protestors, many carrying sticks and knives, shouted slogans against "the United States and its allies in Lebanon" who arrested Khatib.
"Abu Ghraib prison has moved to Lebanon," said one banner, referring to the notorious US-controlled prison near Baghdad where cases of sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi prisoners emerged last year.
"Lebanon's Fallujah refuses humiliation," said another, refering to the Sunni bastion east of Baghdad where insurgents have been waging a fierce battle against US-led forces.
Sheikh Khalil al-Mayss, the mufti of the Bekaa valley who has cast doubt on the state version of the link between those arrested and Al-Qaeda, said the protestors were awaiting the arrival of Khatib's body at the mosque.
"But the family refuses to take the body without a proper investigation to know the real truth," he told AFP.
A delegation of relatives, accompanied by a doctor, was at Beirut's Dahr al-Basheq government hospital where Khatib died awaiting clearance from the prosecutor's office to carry out a private autopsy, relatives and hospital officials told AFP.
A statement distributed at the mosque in the name of Majdal Anjar residents said Khatib had been detained with his sister Latifa al-Khatib as well as other Majdal Anjar residents identified as Inaam Jalloul and her brother Nabil Jalloul, Hajj Jamal Abdel Wahed, Mahmud Abdel Khaleq, Ibrahim Adi, Khaled al-Musaffi and Issam Sharruf.
But the office of public prosector Adnan Addum announced that Khatib's sister and another woman, Inaam Jalloul, were freed early Tuesday.
The residents' statement said "we declare our anger and condemnation at the death of the young man which came as a result of torture during detention."
"We demand an inquiry to know the truth about the death of this young man, but we want the medical examiner to be appointed by the family," they said. "We demand the resignation of the interior minister who is fully responsible and we demand the release of all other detainees."
The residents said the "terrorist charges are mere ready-made fabrications by those who want to detain him to please America."
Ahmad al-Khatib, the cousin of the dead man, denounced the overnight riots which he said were "not carried out by us, but by state services in order to deprive us of our rights and tarnish the reputation of Majdal Anjar."