DRUG SUSPECT DIES AFTER GERMAN POLICE FORCIBLY ADMINISTER EMETIC

HAMBURG, Germany -- A 19-year-old alleged drug dealer from Cameroon died
today, three days after being forced by German police to take an emetic to
make him vomit narcotics he had swallowed.

A statement from the Hamburg justice department said the cause of death was
not clear and that an autopsy had been ordered.

The youth had a heart attack Sunday after being given the herbal emetic
ipecacuanha while in custody. Police later found 41 vials of narcotics in
his stomach and intestine that he had swallowed in an effort to hide
evidence against him.

The suspect had resisted taking the substance, screaming "I will die" when
several officers held him down so a doctor could administer it, according
to Klaus Pueschel, the director of the pathology institute where the
suspect was taken.

The practice of forcing a suspect to ingurgitate an emetic to recover
evidence he had swallowed in an attempt to hide it would be maintained
despite the incident, Hamburg's top justice official, Roger Kusch, said Monday.