Bahraini interior ministry admits two opposition activists dead in prison, seeks to justify

Two Bahraini opposition activists detained in the wake of anti-regime protests have died in detention, the Gulf kingdom's interior ministry said on Sunday.
  
Ali Issa Saqer, 31, died at the hands of prison security guards after "causing chaos in detention", police claimed in a statement posted on the interior ministry's Twitter page.
  
"Security men had to intervene to restore security ... but he resisted, forcing them to engage him, which resulted in him receiving several wounds," it went on to say, seeking to justify ‘killing’ him.
  
He died in hospital, police said, without specifying whether he was shot or had suffered other injuries.
  
Police claimed Saqer was arrested on suspicion of having killed policemen by running them over with a car.
  
The ministry said another detainee, Zakaraya Rashed Hassan, 40, arrested on April 2 for "inciting hatred against the regime and spreading fabricated news", had been "found dead" in his prison cell.
  
A post-mortem examination showed sickle cell disease was the cause of death.
  
The ministry said that in late March 24 people, four of them policemen, were killed in clashes during month-long protests, led by Bahrain's opposition, calling for democratic reform in the kingdom.