RIOTS IN MAURITIUS AFTER REGGAE SINGER DIES IN JAIL

PORT LOUIS, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Around 2,000 protesters in Mauritius clashed
with police after a local reggae singer arrested for smoking marijuana died
in police custody, reports said on Monday.

Joseph Reginald Topize -- or Kaya -- died in jail on Sunday three days
after his arrest for smoking marijuana at a rally to decriminalise the drug
in the Indian Ocean nation.

Hundreds of Kaya's fans armed with sticks and stones went on the rampage
when they heard of his death, ransacking three police stations in poor
parts of the island, according to the private L'Express newspaper.

Fans and supporters of the small Republican Movement party, which organised
last Tuesday's rally, smashed two police cars and clashed with police, who
used tear gas.

Around 1,500 also blocked the main highway linking the capital with the
north of the island.

The road remained blocked on Monday morning around the slum area of Roche-
Bois with protesters facing armed police.

L'Express reported that police doctor Baboo Harish Surnam, who conducted
Kaya's autopsy, said the 39-year-old rastafarian singer died of a fractured
skull.

Police denied this and promised a second autopsy.

Supporters of Kaya, who mixed reggae and local sega music, claimed he was a
victim of police brutality.

"Each time there is a death in prison, it's always someone from the Creole
community," Georges Christophe, leader of an Afro-Creole organisation, told
Reuters. "Enough is enough."

Creoles, the mixed blood descendants of former slaves, account for up to 30
percent of the population of the island and are seen as an under-privileged
community.