The last letter written by murdered British surgeon Abbas Khan from his Syrian prison cell proves that he was not suicidal, his family said today.
Syrian officials claim the 32-year-old father-of-two hanged himself just days before he was due to be freed on the order of President Bashar al-Assad.
But the doctor’s family have ridiculed the suggestion and say he was looking forward to Christmas with them.
His family had been campaigning for his release and in the letter, dated December 7, he told them: ‘To everyone! Good work guys, seems they are now responding to the threat of a foreign delegation.
‘But keep up the pressure. We don’t want to lose the Christmas period “window”. Till I’m not released – I’m not free! They can release me immediately if they want.’
His sister Sara Khan, 23, said: ‘He was not sat there saying, “I will rot here.” He is not sat there moping, he wants to come home. He is advising us. That just shows he did not commit suicide. He was coming home to his family . . . to his children.’
Dr Khan, an orthopaedic surgeon from south London, was arrested in November last year near the frontline city of Aleppo only 48 hours after he crossed the border from Turkey without a visa to help treat civilians in a field hospital.
He was beaten and tortured while being held in an underground cell, and at one point his weight dropped to five stone. He was due to be released this weekend in a ‘Christmas-time gesture’ by Assad.
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