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A BRITISH SURGEON imprisoned in war-torn Syria for over a year after volunteering to work in a hospital has died in detention, his family and a lawmaker said today.
Abbas Khan, a 32-year-old orthopaedic surgeon from south London, went to the northern city of Aleppo last year to help treat civilians.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it was “extremely concerned” by reports of his death and was seeking confirmation from the Syrian government, which it said it would hold responsible if he was dead.
Khan’s brother Afroze told the BBC that Syrian authorities had promised to release him this week, but on Monday they told the family he had died. Khan, 34, said:
My brother was going to be released at the end of the week. We were given assurance by the Syrian government. My brother knew that. He was ready to come back home. He was happy and looking forward to being released.
The family added that it had no information on how he died.
British lawmaker George Galloway said he had been due to fly out to Syria within days to bring the doctor home. In a statement, he said:
I think we will have to wait for clarification on how exactly he died but this is heartbreaking and devastating news for his family who have been working so hard for so long to secure his release.
Galloway has been a vocal critic of the western policy on supporting Syrian rebels, having bitterly opposed the Iraq war in 2003, and has maintained contacts with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. He said:
Last week I received a call from the (Syrian) foreign minister telling me that the president had asked him to contact me to come to Damascus to bring Dr Khan home before Christmas, obviously this had to be kept confidential but the family were kept fully informed. I was in the process of booking a flight for this Friday when I got the appalling news.
Afroze Khan accused the Foreign Office of failing to take action:
We are devastated, distraught and we are angry at the Foreign Office for dragging their feet for 13 months.
The Foreign Office said it had sought consular access to Khan on several occasions, but all its requests had been ignored. In a statement it said:
We are extremely concerned by reports that Dr Khan has died in detention in Syria and are urgently seeking confirmation from the Syrian authorities. If these tragic reports are true, responsibility for Dr Khan’s death lies with them and we will be pressing for answers about what happened.
It added: “We have consistently sought consular access to Dr Khan and information on his detention, directly and through the Russians, Czechs and others.”
A junior foreign minister, Hugh Robertson, wrote to the Syrian authorities in November expressing Britain’s concerns about Khan’s welfare and treatment and urged them to review his position.
Rights group Amnesty International said Khan’s death was “yet another deeply troubling death in custody in Syria:
The UK government should denounce Dr Khan’s death in the strongest possible terms and ensure that, no matter how long it takes, whoever is responsible is brought to justice.
The death should also push Britain to urge the UN Security Council to refer the Syria situation to the International Criminal Court, it added.
I wonder if someone did take him out 30 years ago, would Zimbabwe be the basket case he turned it into, or would some other “leader”, equally malingnant have just taken his place.
It’s tempting to write Africa off, but these things are not inevitable. The neighbours in Botswana were a landlocked, diamond rich former colony. Not an obvious candidate for success. And yet they were, partly because of Seretse Khama’s leadership, but also because people kept voting for him.
Unfortunately, for every relative success story there are 50 failed states. Nation building is hard and requires guts, enterprise, selflessness and vision. Mugabe wasn’t even asked to nation build. He was handed a fully functioning, very rich and successful country and managed to level it in less than a generation. That takes mean spiritness, stupidity, and the most crass selfishness and myopic vision, which, unfortunately, seems to be the calibre of most African leaders. Take and destroy is what they do and in the meantime, the west continues to do what the west does best. Assuage our feelings of western guilt by feeding, clothing and vaccinating the Africans left behind by their very own “leaders”.
We can write much of Africa off if the Chinese economy falters, And also, we can take Australia with it.
Problem with africa is its full of africans
“Unfortunate event”
In who’s eyes ????
Funny that at Mandela’s memorial when the camera would go to different world leaders the crowd would cheer or boo depending on who it was on. Mugabe got a massive cheer and Bush Jnr got a massive boo. Ya no your screwed when Mugabe gets a bigger cheer than ya!
It was an ANC crowd at the funeral & Mugabe was a big supporter if the ANC during apartheid times so I’d be sure that’s why he was cheered rather than for his recent policies.
That says a lot more about the crowd than it does about Bush Jr.
Whatever you can accuse Bush Jr. of, laying waste to his country, starving his people, killing the productive farmers and having an ugly greedy, mean wife isnt among them. An ANC crowd can turn into a vicious mob at the turn of a hair. Being rational abd discerning is not their thing.
Hurricane Katrina anyone? ;)
Sadly, probably the latter.
Problem with Africa is the tribal government system, and the mentality of it’s people.
@coom
Same could be said for a lot of countries..including ours!
Christina who wrote that paper? Dept of the Taoiseach?
While it is true that Robert Mugabe has a few character flaws, it cannot be denied that he is an active leader who stands up for his people. Much better than the shower we have running this country, he is. You can bet Robert Mugabe would have burned the bondholders and sent the IMF home with a flea in their ear.
Pity he didn’t have a fatal “accident” here.
Proably after totruring them first…Thing is we can elect another incompetant shower to govern us.Mugabe is there forever like a big black blood sucking tick on Zimbabwae.But then thats what happens if you let Marxist gun waving loons loose on a perfectly functioning and producing ,albeit not without is fault state.Turn it into a dictatorship that makes the previous oppression by whomever look like paradise.
have your say