GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- A suspected gang member accused of helping kill Guyana's former agriculture minister has died in custody, prompting suspicions he may have been poisoned and raising questions about the integrity of the South American country's judicial system

David Leander died on Friday after a judge recently threw out his alleged confession, saying it was coerced by a severe beating. The confession was considered key to his upcoming trial, and many expected the case would be dismissed.

Leander complained of being sick about 10 days earlier after eating a meal in jail and was hospitalized, prisons director Dale Erskine said.

During a subsequent court appearance, Leander's face was badly swollen and he required help to walk, and local media suggested he may have been poisoned.

Erskine tried to deflect suspicions of foul play.

``It is important to note that the prisoner on admission requested to receive meals from his relatives,'' he said in a statement.

Leander's aunt, Evelyn Estwick, told Guyanese media that relatives feared for his safety and warned him to eat only the food they brought him. But she said Leander drank some coconut water he got from an unidentified woman.

An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

Leander was one of a dozen suspected gang members accused in the April 2006 shootings of Agriculture Minister Satyadeo Sawh, two family members and a security guard at Sawh's coastal residence.

Most of the suspects have since been killed in unrelated shootouts, and no one else is awaiting trial for the murders.

Opposition leader Robert Corbin called Leander's death a ``worrying development'' and said it ``casts suspicion on what is taking place in the judicial system.''

In 2003, a former police officer died in custody and was later determined to have been poisoned. A leading member of a government hit squad that fought heavily armed gangs, Mark Thomas was awaiting trial on charges that he killed the man who revealed the squad's existence.

No one has been arrested in his death.