A jailed activist who has been on hunger strike in a Bahrain prison for the last two months is now in a very critical condition, Denmark's prime minister said Tuesday.
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a Shiite with dual Danish and Bahraini nationality, was sentenced with other opposition activists to life in jail over an alleged plot to topple the Sunni monarchy during a month-long protest a year ago.
"Denmark demands thay Danish-Bahraini citizen and human rights activist Khawaja be freed," said Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt at a press conference.
"According to our information, Khawaja's condition is very critical," she added.
Kwawaja's lawyer Mohammed al-Jeshi told AFP on Monday that Khawaja was feared to have died, after Bahraini authorities turned down repeated requests to contact him.
The last time he contacted Khawaja was on Saturday, a day after he was moved from the interior ministry hospital into a military hospital in Manama, he said.
Reacting to his statement, Bahrain's interior ministry said later Monday that Khawaja was in "good health".
A Danish foreign ministry spokesman said Khawaja was alive on Monday according to "credible independent sources" who saw him that day.
Danish ambassador to Bahrain Christian Koenigsfeldt was not allowed to see the prisoner on Sunday or Monday, as he has done daily, the spokesman told AFP.
Denmark has asked Bahrain to send Khawaja to the Scandinavian country but Bahrain's official news agency BNA reported on Sunday that Manama has rejected the request.
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