A FAMILY in the Northern Territory are claiming police mistreatment caused the death of an Aboriginal man after he left a lock-up.
Doris Lewis, the sister of Eric Lewis, said her brother died early in the morning on September 23, soon after being released from police custody in the outback town of Katherine.
Mr Lewis suffered from diabetes and needed regular medication, Ms Lewis said.
"We are blaming police. He had just come from the police station, the watch house," Ms Lewis told AAP.
In a statement, police denied Mr Lewis's death occurred soon after he left police custody.
Acting Commander Michael White said Mr Lewis was taken into custody at 5.20pm (CST) on Friday, September 21 for a number of offences relating to an incident at the Katherine Hotel.
He said Mr Lewis was interviewed, charged and refused bail, although on Saturday at 2.16pm he was given bail and taken home by police.
"Just before 2.30am on Sunday the 23rd of September 2012 authorities were called to his house where subsequent attempts to resuscitate him failed," the acting commander said.
Asked about the police statement, Ms Lewis said it was wrong and that her brother did not return home from the police lock-up until the early hours of Sunday, and died just a short time later.
She said that after leaving the watch house, Mr Lewis complained he was not given any medicine, food or water, and that he had been dragged and kicked by police.
When he returned home he could barely sit up, she said.
Ms Lewis said witnesses had also seen her brother, a Warlpiri man who was a diabetic amputee and used a wheelchair to get around in, roughly handled by police during his arrest.
"They (police) lifted him up and threw him in the paddy wagon without his wheelchair, and that is the last the family saw him alive," she said.
The arrest is believed to have followed an altercation between Mr Lewis and a bouncer at a local pub.
"My brother had left the premises. He walked away," Ms Lewis said.
She said he went to a nearby place where people were playing cards, and was involved in a card game when police arrested him.
Ms Lewis has called for a coronial inquiry to examine the circumstances surrounding the death.
"Unless there is some justice, they will just keep treating our people like this," Ms Lewis said.
Police urged anyone with information that could assist the coroner to contact the NT Coroner's Office.
"If anyone has any information regarding Mr Lewis's period in custody or alleged impropriety by police, they can contact the ombudsman," Acting Commander White said.
The death of Mr Lewis comes soon after a coroner's findings critical of the treatment of Kwementyaye Briscoe, who died in a police lock-up in Alice Springs earlier this year.
Mr Briscoe's aunt, Patricia Morton-Thomas, said Mr Lewis's death was the fifth in suspicious circumstances involving police or corrections since 2009.
"The Northern Territory government must do something urgently about the brutality and harassment that our people are experiencing at the hands of the police," she said.
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