British doctor dies in Syria jail
Source: Global Post
A British surgeon imprisoned in Syria for over a year after volunteering to work at a hospital has died in prison, just days before he was due to be handed over to a lawmaker, his family said. Abbas Khan, a 32-year-old orthopaedic surgeon from south London, travelled to the conflict-torn northern city of Aleppo last year to help treat civilians but was captured by the Syrian regime.
He died days before firebrand British lawmaker George Galloway was due to fly to Damascus so Khan could be handed over on what Galloway said were President Bashar al-Assad's orders. Galloway -- a vocal critic of the western policy on supporting Syrian rebels, having bitterly opposed the Iraq war in 2003 -- said he had been due to fly out to Syria within days to bring the doctor home.
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. "My brother was going to be released at the end of the week. We were given assurance by the Syrian government," said Khan, 34. "My brother knew that. He was ready to come back home. He was happy and looking forward to being released."
"The Observatory believes there is an overwhelming likelihood he died of torture, because there are hundreds of similar cases in which the regime says a prisoner committed suicide when in fact they were tortured to death," founder Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131217/british-doctor-dies-syria-jail-0