Brit scientist found dead in luxury hotel as family believe he was murdered

MYSTERY surrounds the death of a British scientist who was found dead in a luxury hotel, with his family believing he was murdered.

The body of Farooq Ali, 44, was discovered in the Ramada by Wyndham hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, with his relatives saying he had been lying there for up to five days.

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They have now called on police to publish a full report into his possible murder.

Farooq’s relatives held a vigil in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on Saturday and want the UK government to “pressure” local authorities as they look for answers.

The scientist and aspiring author had been staying at the plush hotel for just under a year while he worked on a novel.

But he was last seen on March 11, 2022, before his body was discovered in his room with “blood and foam” coming from his mouth five days later.

And his heartbroken sisters Yasmin, 48, and Rehiana, 42, who have been going through a “living nightmare” since his death, believe he may have been murdered.

Yasmin said: “Rehiana and I have not had a chance to properly grieve. We’ve been thrown in from March 16 when we heard this, and it’s just been a living nightmare.

“I’ve said time and time again, they haven’t just killed Farooq.

“I think whoever did this has killed my family as well because we were very close.

“It feels like some limbs have been torn from you, and you can’t get past it.”

Yasmin, a lawyer originally from Bradford, said she and Rehiana had last heard from Farooq on March 6 last year through an email he’d sent them.

But on March 14, Rehiana noticed he hadn’t paid a bill on the Halifax credit card they shared together, and a few days later called hotel staff to check if he was ok.

Yasmin added: “On March 16, she couldn’t get hold of him.

“She’d woken up at 4am and called the hotel reception. She just wanted confirmation that our brother was still there.

“They said, ‘Yes, he’s here,’ but nobody mentioned that he hadn’t ordered food for five or six days and he’s not been seen for five or six days.

“Seven hours later, she got a call, and they just said: ‘Your brother is dead’.”

Yasmin flew out to Pakistan with her family and found foam and blood around his mouth after inspecting his body.

She claimed local doctors first suggested he’d had a stroke, but Rehiana, a consultant neurologist, didn’t believe the cause of death made sense.

The family also questioned why hotel staff had not checked on Farooq in his room if his body had remained in there, as they suspected, for five days.

Yasmin said they later exhumed Farooq’s remains and asked for pathologists in the UK to re-examine his body for signs of foul play and to determine a cause of death.

She said: “My brother had some blood oozing out of his mouth or his nose, congealed.

“And there was a high level of foam surrounding his mouth – loads and loads of foam covering all around his mouth, down to his beard. We saw that ourselves.

“Most of the pathologists we spoke to in the UK and Ireland who saw pictures of the foam, said there was too much foam for a natural death.

“And the only conclusion they could draw was that, effectively, it indicates poisoning. But obviously, nothing came up in the toxicology report after the exhumation.”

Yasmin said she’s spent months meeting with police and even launched high court legal bids in the hope they would release a report into her brother’s case.

But she said the authorities still haven’t filed the document with magistrates, and she now wants British officials to put pressure on Pakistani authorities.

She said: “From the British government, what we need is their involvement at a high level, and I think they’ve got the leverage to do so, to put pressure on Pakistan to comply with basic law and order.

“Justice must be done for this family, like anybody else.

“At the end of the day, they need to be concerned with the fact that he was a British national.

“If we get silence from people who represent us, where we see home as Britain, then where do we stand?”

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who died in Pakistan and continue to raise the case with the local authorities.”

The Sun Online has contacted both the Pakistani embassy in the UK and Ramada by Wyndham hotel group for comment.

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