BRITON DIES WHILE SERVING PRISON SENTENCE IN MATARAM

Mataram, West Nusatenggara (NTB), Aug 21 (ANTARA) - A British inmate of Mataram's state penitentiary named Lyster Thomas Gardner Hudges (52) was on Friday afternoon found unconscious in his cell but later pronounced dead by hospital staff.

"A guard found the Briton motionless, as if he had passed out, in the cell he was occupying alone," the warden of Mataram's correctional institute, Purwadi Utama, said.

Accompanied by police, Gardner was taken to an army hospital located next to the prison but doctors who examined him there said he had died.

Utama declined to comment on what could have caused Gardner's death, saying it was the police who would clarify the matter to the public.

"We have to wait for the result of the medical examination and it is the police who will announce it," he said.

Meanwhile, Gardner's body had been moved to the NTB General Hospital pending a decision from his family on where he would be buried - in his home country or in Mataram.

Gardner was put in jail last February 16, 2009 to serve an 11-month sentence meted out by the Mataram District Court for committing "an act offensive to others."