British foreign aid money has been used fund a police force whose officers stood by and watched a woman get stoned to death and handed cash to extremists, it has been alleged as the Government suspends the project.

The Free Syrian Police (FSP), a flagship UK-backed scheme, is said to have had officers handpicked by a branch of al-Qaeda and handed over cash in a protection racket to Nour al-Din al-Zinki, the extremist group in control of the Allepo.

Dead or fictitious officers have also been discovered on the payroll of the force, which was intended to bring law and order to parts of the country that were controlled by opponents of the Assad regime.

Following the claims by BBC Panorama to be aired this evening (MON) the government suspended all aid to the £12m project, which was first set up five years ago.

Tory MP Crispin Blunt, former chair the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “You’ve got people being sentenced to death for homosexuality.

“Clearly that is completely and utterly unacceptable by any standard and the idea that British taxpayers’ money was associated with that would of course be wholly abhorrent.”