Hamas cries foul over death in W.Bank custody

Palestinian security officials in the West Bank denied accusations on Monday by their Islamist rivals that a man who died in their custody had been killed by President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed forces.

Officials from Hamas, the Islamist group which runs the Gaza Strip, described 30-year-old Mohammed Adbel-Jamil al-Hajj as one of its members in Jenin and said his death by hanging on Sunday in a jail in the northern West Bank city was a political murder. Officials from Abbas's Preventive Security Force, which runs the detention facility, said Hajj committed suicide. (Reuters)