Syria doctor's family says suicide claims are 'utter nonsense' The UK government has said the death of a British doctor imprisoned in Syria amounts to "murder." An official in Damascus said Abbas Khan - a 32-year-old surgeon from London - had committed suicide in his cell on Monday morning. But Mr Khan's brother, Shahnawaz Khan, said the suggestion that his brother had taken his own life were "utter nonsense." His family had been told by the Syrian authorities he would be freed in a few days' time. "To be so close... and to be robbed of it... is the cruellest way it could possibly happen," he told the BBC's Sophie Hutchinson.