DID GANG KILL BRIT BANKER?
Six-month wait for postmortem after bungled pr obe IRISH JIHADI’S SUICIDE TRUCK ATTACK
BANKER James Starkey may have been killed by a gang, but his family face at least a six-month wait for answers.
Nearly a month after the Briton’s naked body was found tied to a chair in South Africa, no arrests have been made and no suspects questioned.
Police now believe the killing could have been ordered by a gang, who gave Mr Starkey a drugs overdose in a botched robbery, but delays at state mortuaries are holding up a vital postmortem report.
An official at one in Johannesburg said: “His body was found on October 8, and an autopsy was carried out on the same day. But the system is overwhelmed. There’s such a huge backlog, an official report outlining exactly how he died won’t be available for five to six months at the earliest.”
Mr Starkey, 29, was on a threemonth placement in South Africa from banking consultancy Catalyst, London. He had reportedly proposed to his girlfriend just weeks earlier.
Staff at Raphael Penthouse Suites, Johannesburg, where the dual British/ Australian citizen was staying, saw him and a woman enter the complex the night before his body was found. After earlier reports Mr Starkey was tortured, it is believed the woman could be linked to a local gang responsible for seducing tourists before drugging and robbing them.
A source close to the probe told us: “Starkey’s death was drug-related. It’s garbage that he was burnt. That came from the paramedics, who got it wrong. He wasn’t tortured.”
Another source said: “There was evidence of blunt-force injuries to his head, face and chest. He was black and blue all over. He looked like he’d been in a few rounds with Mike Tyson.
“Which poses the question, could a lone woman have been capable of that?” Police have refused to say whether items were taken from the room, but are believed to be examining Mr Starkey’s laptop.
Lt Col Lungelo Dlamini, of South African Police Service, has said they were “investigating a case of murder”, but admitted a proper investigation could rest on the results of the autopsy.
He said: “His hands were tied up. We don’t know exactly what killed him, we are waiting for the postmortem to work out exactly what happened to him. At this stage, no one has been arrested but we are continuing the investigation.”
Some 60,000 samples are awaiting testing in the country’s four state-run labs, where a catalogue of mismanagement was recently exposed. It included fridges running at temperatures that risk destroying evidence.
The mortuary official said: “Six months for a PM report is not bad. The wait for a toxicology report if the samples are still viable is nine years.”
The body of Mr Starkey, who lived in Woolwich, South East London, has been returned to Australia and dad Ian has hired a private pathologist.
Police in Johannesburg were contacted for comment. AN IRISH jihadi known as Terry Taliban has blown himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq.
Khalid Kelly killed himself by driving an explosives-packed truck into advancing Iraqi troops near the city of Mosul.
In a video posted online the former Dublin altar boy, 49, swore allegiance to Islamic State moments before the kamikaze mission.
He was one of five jihadis who hit troops during their push to recapture the city.
Dad-of-three Kelly, who trained as a nurse and called himself Abu Osama Al-Irlandi, was radicalised in a Saudi Arabian jail while serving time for being caught with a crate of scotch.
He converted to Islam after being given the Koran in English. He said: “It was all suddenly very clear. I felt freer than I had ever been, even though I was in prison.”
In 2009, Kelly set up home in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, just 60 miles from the Afghan border.
He said: “I understand people are shocked at the nature of the executions [of captured American and UK hostages].
“What makes anywhere evil is what God says makes it evil. Homosexuality, alcohol, sex, drugs, sex outside of marriage, are all widely available and have become the norm.
“In the Islamic state, all these things are illegal. This is why Islam will reform and change the world.”
It is unclear how many people were killed in Friday’s suicide attack. Yesterday Iraqi special forces pushed out IS militants and cleared buildings in eastern Mosul.
REBELS trying to break a government siege in Aleppo, Syria, have killed at least 74 civilians, including 25 children.