Mystery as British scientist found dead in luxury hotel where he was writing novel as family believes he was murdered

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

The body of Farooq Ali, 44, was discovered at the Ramada by Wyndham Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. His relatives said he lay there for up to five days.

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They have now asked the police to release a full report on his possible murder.

Farooq’s relatives held a vigil in Bradford, West Yorkshire on Saturday and want the UK government to ‘put pressure’ on local authorities as they seek answers.

The scientist and aspiring author lived in the posh hotel for almost a year while he was working on a novel.

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

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 didn’t have a chance to grieve properly. We’ve been thrown in since March 16th when we heard this and it was just a living nightmare.

“I kept saying that they didn’t just kill Farooq.

“I think whoever did that also killed my family because we were very close.

“It feels like you’ve had a few limbs ripped off and you can’t get past it.”

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

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

Yasmin added: “On March 16, she could not reach him.

“She woke 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 wasn’t seen for five or six days.

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

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

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

The family also questioned why hotel staff hadn’t checked Farooq in his room when, as they suspected, his body had stayed there for five days.

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

She said: “My brother had clotted some blood that oozed from his mouth or nose.

“And there was a lot of foam around his mouth – lots of foam covering his mouth all the way down to his beard. We saw that for ourselves.

“Most pathologists we spoke to in the UK and Ireland and saw the images of the foam said it was too much foam for a natural death.

“And the only conclusion they could draw was that it effectively indicates poisoning.

Yasmin said she spent months meeting with the police and even starting court cases in the Supreme Court hoping they would release a report on her brother’s case.

But she said authorities still have not submitted the document to judges and she now wants British officials to put pressure on Pakistani authorities.

She said: “What we need from the UK Government is their high level engagement and I think they have the leverage to put pressure on Pakistan to comply with basic laws and regulations.

“Justice must be made for this family as for all others.

“At the end of the day, they have to worry about the fact that he was a British citizen.

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

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a Briton who has died in Pakistan and are continuing to raise the case with local authorities.”

The Sun Online has reached out to both the Pakistani Embassy in the UK and hotel group Ramada by Wyndham for comment.

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