Their lawyer M Manoharan said he wanted the Sungai Buloh prison to “come clean” on the matter and asked for full transparency on the cause of Iqbal’s death in the interest of justice to the family.

“The prison authorities must answer, the director-general (of the prisons department) must resign and the perpetrators who caused Iqbal’s death must be sacked,” he said in a statement today.

Iqbal, 29, a school van driver, died while waiting for a scheduled appointment with a specialist at the hospital. He became unconscious and died before the specialist could see him, and the cause of death was not immediately known.

Referring to the pathologist’s report, Manoharan said Iqbal’s family was puzzled why experts were unable to determine the exact cause of death, stating instead that their findings would be “pending laboratory investigations” despite a four-hour post mortem on the deceased.

“The family is also unable to extract the death certificate as a result of the cause of death not being clear. Why are laboratory investigations into the cause of death necessary?” he asked.