DOUALA, Cameroon — Cameroon's top opposition leader, Anicet Ekane, has died after weeks of detention at the age of 74, his lawyers and family said Monday, alleging that he had struggled to breathe but didn't receive proper care.

Ekane was arrested in late October alongside other top figures of his African Movement for New Independence and Democracy party as protests rattled the country over allegations of fraud in the presidential election. He was detained on charges of insurrection, his lawyer Emmanuel Simh told The Associated Press.

“Mr. Ekane was critically sick, he was denied appropriate treatment,” Simh said. “We’re still in the shock and sadness. Ekane committed no crime, so we need to know why he was arrested and abandoned in the prison cell of the paramilitary gendarmerie.”

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