Abbas Khan, who died in jail in Syria. Photograph: Facebook
The family of a south London surgeon who died in a Syrian jail 13 months after being imprisoned has accused the UK government of not doing enough to secure his release.
Abbas Khan, 32, from Streatham, was detained after travelling to Aleppo to work in a field hospital in November last year. His brother said his mother went to visit Khan, who had been due to be released shortly, in jail in Damascus on Monday but was told he was dead.
The Syrian government says Khan killed himself but the family have rejected that explanation and the UK Foreign Office said the Syrian regime had "in effect murdered a British national".
Despite the strong criticism of the Syrian authorities, Khan's family said the government had not provided them with help when they needed it.
His brother Shahnawaz Khan told the BBC: "It is interesting for the Foreign Office to take that line now. We have been telling them for 13 months that this is a very real possibility. And they have treated his case like he's been some wayward traveller in Dubai being caught drunk, and contravened some trivial law in Syria.
"The fact that this individual was out there helping the humanitarian effort and has been held for 13 months against his will, without a charge or a trial or access to a lawyer, and they have offered very little assistance, placated us throughout."
He said the death of his brother, who worked at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital, had brought "utter despair" to the family but they were proud that he died doing something he believed in.
The father-of-two was arrested by government forces within 48 hours of arriving in Aleppo to work as an emergency surgeon. For months the family were in the dark about his whereabouts until his mother, Fatima, travelled to Damascus and found him languishing in jail.
She said he could barely walk, his weight had dropped below five stone (32kg) and he had been tortured. Last week his family said he was depressed and might harm himself, but Shahnawaz Khan said he was in "high spirits" as he had told he was to be released and wrote to them saying he was looking forward to coming home and spending Christmas with them.
Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, had used his pyjamas to hang himself. But Shahnawaz Khan described Mekdad's claim as "utter nonsense and I would ardently deny anything of that scenario".
George Galloway, the Bradford West MP, said he had been negotiating for months with the Syrian government over the release of Khan and had been due to fly out on Friday to bring him home, after receiving a call from the Syrian foreign minister informing him that the president, Bashar al-Assad, had ordered Khan's release.
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