Jury at inquest into death in custody of orthopaedic surgeon from London says he was killed without legal justification

A jury has returned a verdict of unlawful killing at an inquest into the death of Dr Abbas Khan in a Syrian prison.

Khan, 32, an orthopaedic surgeon from Streatham, south London, died on 16 December 2013 in an “unknown prison or place of detention” in Damascus, it said.

The jury of seven men and four women said the medical cause of Khan’s death was “unascertained”, but found his killing unlawful. “Dr Khan was deliberately and intentionally killed without any legal justification,” said the jury forewoman.

Outside court, Khan’s brother, Afroze Khan, said: “As a family, we have always maintained that our brother was an innocent man who travelled to Syria for no other reason than helping injured civilians in the conflict. We have always maintained that he was mistreated, maltreated and tortured by the Syrian authorities and that he was murdered by the Syrians. Today, our position as a family has been vindicated completely.”

Khan’s mother, Fatima, said she was grateful to the jury, but believed she had been let down by governments, including the UK. “There was no justice in Syria like we have British justice here – no court, no justice – otherwise my son would have been released,” she said. “I couldn’t save my son. I trusted judges, lawyers and ministers but everyone lied to me. They stabbed me in my back.”

The family’s counsel, Michael Mansfield QC, said it was an important case that laid down a marker and should now go forward to the international criminal court. “What this jury has done is uncover the truth – that it was never suicide,” he said.

Khan, a father of two, died while being held in custody by Syrian government officials last December. He was captured in Aleppo in November 2012 after travelling from Turkey to help victims of hospital bombings. His family claim he was murdered while being held, and the Foreign Office agreed that he was “in effect murdered”, but the Syrian government has always maintained Khan killed himself.

The chief coroner, Peter Thornton, said “things went wrong” on 22 November 2012 when Khan, who was working in a hospital, was detained while out for a walk and “was never a free man again”. Just over a year later he was found dead, the coroner said.

During the two-week hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the jury heard there was no evidence that Khan had gone to Syria to fight.

“It is clear that he wanted to use his medical skills to help others, and that included helping others in conflict-torn Syria,” said Thornton.

The jury heard how Khan’s family, particularly Fatima Khan – who travelled to Syria alone to lobby for his release – had made “superhuman” efforts on his behalf. Respect MP George Galloway, former British National party leader Nick Griffin and a delegation of parliamentarians were also involved in unsuccessful efforts to free him.

Giving evidence in court, Fatima Khan said she went to Syria in July 2013 and visited embassies and prisons to trace her son. She told the inquest how she finally saw her son at a Syrian court.

“I hugged him. He was a skeleton. He was in tears. I said: ‘Look, Mummy is here for you.’ He said: ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have come here, please take me home’,” she said.

Her son was missing a fingernail and his feet were completely burnt, she added. When she questioned him over his injuries he replied: “This is nothing, I have suffered more than this.”

Khan later described how the conditions were “like hell”, with cockroaches, mice and faeces on the floor, said Fatima Khan. He was beaten up by other prisoners and interrogated by men who beat him with rubber hoses, the jury heard.

DCI Grant Mallon told a brief hearing in December that the Syrians passed on the news of Khan’s death via a Czech representative who was in contact with the British.

The Syrian authorities claimed that on 16 December Khan was to be presented before a terrorism court. Breakfast was served at 7.30am and officers went to his cell at about 9am.

“It was their opinion he had committed suicide although the motivation for this was not apparent to them,” said Mallon.

The Syrians gave the cause of death as asphyxiation by hanging, and said there were “no traces of violence, forced resistance or torture on the body,” he said.

Khan’s body was taken by an International Red Cross ambulance to a border crossing at Maznaa and then to a mortuary in Beirut. He was identified in the Lebanese capital by his brother. David Cameron, wrote on 20 December to Fatima Khan calling her son’s death “a sickening and appalling tragedy”.