Palestinian Police Held in Man’s Death : Gaza Strip: The PLO government faces its first human rights challenge in the killing of a prisoner accused of collaborating with the Israelis.

Faced with its first major human rights test, the new Palestinian Authority is moving quickly to bring to justice three members of its police force accused of beating to death a taxi driver suspected of collaborating with the Israeli secret police.

Khaled Kidra, the Palestinian prosecutor general, said Saturday that the three Palestinian officers were arrested after an autopsy showed that Farid Jarbou had been severely beaten “close to sensitive areas of his body” during interrogation last week and had died “as the result of the use of violence.”

Jarbou, 28, from the southern Gaza town of Shabura, was arrested June 25 on suspicion of working for Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service, according to Palestinian officials. He was found dead in his cell in the interrogation wing of the Al Saraya prison complex in the Gaza Strip before dawn Tuesday, officials said.

Freih abu Medein, the justice minister, in a statement Saturday condemned the killing as a “very grave offense” and promised that “all those found responsible” would be punished.

At the same time, the issue of Palestinians who have worked for Israeli intelligence and security services, as hundreds have, is one of the most sensitive the Palestinian Authority faces because of the intense popular hatred toward them.

As Israeli forces prepared to withdraw from Gaza, it reportedly recruited even more agents in what Palestinian security officials contend was an effort not only to ensure continued intelligence from the region but to manipulate politics there.

“The recruitment of these informants and agents is a dirty, dirty game,” a senior security aide to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat said, “and we will be a long time in cleaning up the results. . . . A lot of that dirt inevitably will soil us.”

Two captains in the counterintelligence branch of the Palestinian security service and an “interrogator” have been arrested, Justice Ministry officials said, and are expected to be tried by court-martial.

Jarbou’s death was the first of a prisoner since Israel handed over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority two months ago, and it renewed fears among Palestinian and international human rights groups about adherence to the rule of law.

“We are very concerned that Mr. Jarbou’s death appears to have been caused by severe abuse by the Palestinian security services,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “At the same time, we are encouraged that the authorities have acknowledged the abuse and are saying that three members of the security forces have been arrested.

“At this early stage of Palestinian self-rule, the authorities need to send clear signals that violations of human rights will not be tolerated, and we hope that their handling of this death in detention will exemplify this approach,” he said.

In a letter to Abu Medein, Human Rights Watch also urged the Palestinian Authority to establish an office where complaints about police abuse, as well as other human rights violations, can be made by prisoners, their lawyers and families.

The Washington-based human rights group Solidarity International also said it was investigating after receiving a complaint from Jarbou’s family. Arafat has promised Amnesty International that the Palestinians will apply internationally recognized human rights standards in the autonomous Gaza Strip and the Jericho District in the West Bank.

But in its annual report, Amnesty said last week that Palestinian groups “continued grave human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings.”