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UK: Another asylum-seeker dies in detention

01 January 1992

Amasase Lumumba, the great-nephew of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of an independent Zaire, died at the age of 32 in Pentonville prison of a heart attack on 10 October after being restrained by prison officers.

Mr Lumumba had arrived from France on false papers on 1 September 1991, and was arrested in Catford, South London, on 15 September on suspicion of theft of a bicycle and assaulting children. He was passed to the immigration service without being charged, and had been in Pentonville since 20 September. He had been in the prison hospital for psychiatric attention for symptoms of confusion and anger, and was returning there for further treatment when he allegedly attempted to break free and was restrained by prison officers. He died of a choking fit.

During the Gulf War, the International Red Cross protested at the use of Pentonville prison to house immigration prisoners and asylum-seekers. But Pentonville, and other prisons, are still being used, in addition to the immigration detention centres at Heathrow, Harmondsworth, Gatwick, Dover and Haslar. In 1990 over 9000 people were detained under the Immigration Act, although figures for asylum-seekers are not available separately, according to a written answer on 14 October (Hansard 14 October 1991 col. 19-20).