ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani student who was arrested for allegedly trying to hurt a German newspaper editor for publishing Prophet Muhammad cartoons has died in custody in Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday.
Tasnim Aslam identified the student as Amer Cheema, but would not say exactly when he had been arrested. She said an initial report from Berlin suggested that Cheema hanged himself at a prison, and added that Pakistan was trying to get more details.
"So far we only know that he had been detained for allegedly trying to hurt the editor of a German newspaper in Berlin, and his trial had not started yet," she told The Associated Press.
In Berlin, a spokeswoman for justice officials confirmed that a 28-year-old whose name she gave only as Aamir C. was found dead in his cell early Wednesday, having hanged himself using his clothes.
Spokeswoman Juliane Baer-Henney said there was no indication that anyone else had been involved in the man’s death.
"There were no indications of involvement of other persons," said Baer-Henney. "He used his clothing to fashion a noose and hanged himself on the grill over his window."
The young man was being held in pretrial confinement, she said, but declined to give immediate details of the case. In an earlier statement, justice officials said he was being held on "suspicion of attempted coercion and resisting arrest."
According to Pakistani media reports, a hardline Islamic lawmaker Mian Aslam met with Cheema’s father in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital, on Thursday and promised to raise the issue in the parliament.
On Friday, three hardline lawmakers from Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal - a coalition of six religious parties - introduced a motion in the National Assembly, seeking a debate on the death of Cheema in his cell.
They said the student - according to his family - had allegedly been tortured to death, though they offered no evidence to back up the claim. The government didn’t oppose the motion, and the assembly speaker, Chaudhry Ameer Hussain, allowed it to be debated at an unspecified date.
Earlier this year, Muslims held rallies across the world to condemn the cartoons. Some protests turned violent, including in Pakistan, where at least five people died in the unrest.
The caricatures - including one that depicts the prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse - were first published in September in a Danish newspaper and later reprinted in other European publications.
The Berlin-based German daily Die Welt reprinted several of the drawings in February.
Islamic tradition bars the depiction of Muhammad, favorable or otherwise, to prevent idolatry.
Pakistan is an Islamic republic and its laws prescribe the death sentence for insulting Muhammad or Islam’s holy book, the Quran.
Islamabad in February had summoned the envoys of nine Western countries, including Germany, to protest the publication of cartoon in newspapers.
Germany has lamented the publication of cartoons, while appealing for calm and an end to violence over the controversy.
