NHS doctor and UK pharmacist who became Nazi-style torturers for ISIS

Team of vile medics took organs from prisoners... and gave them to wounded terrorists

TWO British health workers who sneaked into Islamic State territory carried out ‘Nazi- style’ medical experiments on prisoners, Syrian witnesses claim.

Issam Abuanza, 40, a former NHS doctor who left behind his wife and two children in Sheffield when he travelled to Syria in 2014, was appointed the terror group’s ‘ health minister’, the British Government believes.

Abuanza, now thought to be hiding in caves near the village of Baghouz, carried out such brutal torture on his victims that even IS fighters opposed it. He appointed Mohammad Anwar Miah, also 40, a former pharmacist from Birmingham, who helped him remove organs from detained prisoners, the Syrian witnesses claim.

The body parts were either transplanted into injured jihadis, passed on to middle men who sold them on the black market to fund terror, or put in the cells of prisoners to frighten them, it is alleged.

A ten-man medical team headed by Abuanza also allegedly carried out chemical tests on prisoners, it is claimed.

The exact nature of the chemicals are unknown.

The allegations are at odds with Miah’s account of his years with the group, which he gave to the Daily Mail from northern Syria just weeks ago.

This newspaper has since been able to piece together an extraordinary alternative account of the pair’s lives inside the brutal terrorist organisation.

Details of their alleged roles come from activist group Sound and Picture, whose members lived under the jihadis’ rule and closely followed their activities.

Western intelligence has corroborated some of the claims. Abuanza deserted his family in 2014 after ranting about the NHS, saying doctors were treated like beggars in Britain. He told overseas graduates sitting tests for their English language and clinical skills that they would need antipsychotic drugs to work in the NHS. In one chilling online post, he said he wished that a Jordanian pilot burnt alive in a cage by Islamic State had taken longer to die.

Miah, who renamed himself Abu Obayda al-Britani once he joined IS, left Birmingham in September 2014 to sneak into territory held by the terror group.

In his first newspaper interview in February, he told the Mail he never swore allegiance to the group and had gone there, illegally, for ‘humanitarian work’.

He said he lived in the town of Mayadin in eastern Syria under IS rule for four years, and claimed to have met no other British citizens and to have treated only civilians.

He said he worked there as an assistant orthopaedic surgeon,

‘The transfer of human organs’

learning from a book as he went. But Sound and Picture claims he met Abuanza in Mayadin in 2015 and they became close.

Both men shared the nickname Abu Obayda.

They worked in a hospital in the town, called ‘Alteb Alhadith’ in Arabic, and it was there that Abuanza allowed Miah to perform surgery on civilians, it is claimed. That year, Abuanza was made IS’s health minister.

Aghiad al-Kheder, co-founder of Sound and Picture, said: ‘Islamic State needed to show that it was a government not a radical group and so it appointed a minister for everything.

‘Issam was minister for health which meant he was responsible for everything health related.’ He said Abuanza developed a reputation for his cruel techniques, adding: ‘Issam first chose Mohammed Anwar – he needed someone to help.’

Mr al-Kheder said they both went to work at the ‘Pharmex Hospital’ in the city of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria in February 2016.

‘Anwar was involved in the transfer of human organs from the prisoners to members of IS and the human organ trade that was conducted by IS,’ he claimed.

Later that year they returned to Mayadin, where Abuanza allegedly headed a team of nine others, including Miah as well as a Jordanian doctor, two Iraqis and five Syrians.

According to witnesses, the group performed medical experiments on prisoners, transferred organs from prisoners to wounded jihadis, and were involved in the organ trade.

Mr al-Kheder said one IS member described the methods of medical torture as ‘Nazi-style’ and that they were considered even by fighters as ‘brutal’.

He added: ‘They experimented with torture and with chemical materials but we are not sure for what purposes.

‘ They used the materials on the prisoners.’

He also claimed the group put prisoners in an empty room and left them with dismembered bodies as a method of torture.

Mr al-Kheder said Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi visited the Mayadin hospital in 2017 when he was injured.

Miah was working in the hospital at the time but it is not known if he directly communicated with al-Baghdadi.

The most up-to-date information suggests Abuanza was in the town of Hajin in eastern Syria and then fled to caves east of Baghouz, the final stronghold of IS.

Miah is one of more than six suspected jihadi Britons being held by the Kurdish-led opposition Syrian Democratic Forces, along with two members of the notorious ‘ Beatles’ gang responsible for beheading British hostages. He told the Mail in February that he wanted to return to Britain.

He claimed he was innocent of any crimes, adding: ‘I came here to do humanitarian work, I came here with that intention and that’s what I did.

‘I did not take part in any of these atrocities or incited any hatred or made any videos. I have never killed or hurt anybody.’

Miah’s family declined to comment. Abuanza and his wife Sally lived in Sheffield with their two children.

A former neighbour said Sally had moved away with her new boyfriend and had a baby with him. She could not be located for comment.

‘Experimented with torture’