Veteran Syrian opposition figure Oday Rajab died today of kidney failure following beatings he suffered in a government prison, a monitoring group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Rajab, 52, was arrested in April in the western city of Tartus at a military intelligence checkpoint.
"For eight days he was tortured and beaten," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that he was later moved to a hospital where he died today of renal failure.
Rajab had been imprisoned for six years under the regime of Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria's current President Bashar al-Assad, for membership of an outlawed communist party.
