An NHS doctor has been spreading the conspiracy theory that the Manchester synagogue attack was a ‘false flag operation’ designed to boost sympathy for Israel amid international pressure over their treatment of Palestinians.
Dr Asad Khan, a respiratory consultant from Manchester, posted on Instagram and in the Facebook group the On-Call Room, where registered doctors engage in ‘lively banter and debate’ casting doubt on the motive for the terror attack.
Islamic extremist Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by armed police outside the Heaton Park Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester, after driving a car into members of the Jewish community before stabbing them. He was also wearing a fake suicide belt at the time.
Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed and four people were injured in the attack.
It later emerged that Mr Daulby’s fatal injuries, and serious injuries to a second victim who survived, were the result of a police bullet.
On the day of the attack Dr Khan, who was forced to give up working after contracting Covid in November 2020, was already posting online suggesting the terror attack was a ‘false flag’.
It comes amid a string of NHS staff who have been accused of making anti-Semitic posts online in the wake of the attack.
Posting in the On-Call Room, the Times reports Dr Khan said he was ‘raising the possibility of this being a false flag’.
He added: ‘I may be right or wrong. I have the right to speculate. There have been false flag antisemitic incidents before, including synagogue attacks.’
He later allegedly promoted the same conspiracy theory on Instagram.
Dr Khan is also said to have posted a screenshot on X which read: ‘The synagogue incident in Manchester is a conveniently-timed false flag. A little warm up for the next October 7. Israeli sympathy is running low and obviously needs a boost.’
The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment over Dr Khan’s claims.
In a separate post, the consultant reposted a thread that argued Israel is to blame for attacks on Jewish people outside of Israel.
‘If a pro-Israel Zionist synagogue in the UK was attacked because of the genocide in Palestine, then we shouldn’t be surprised or horrified,’ it read.
‘It’s really quite simple. If you want Jews to feel safe, stop allowing Zionist Jews to annihilate Palestinians in the name of their Jewishness.’
And this week, he retweeted an X post calling for Israel to be ‘invaded and occupied’.
Dr Khan is far from the only NHS employee accused of anti-Semitism.
Ten days after the October 7 attack by terror group Hamas, in which members killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251, who they took into Gaza, a Dundee GP called for Zionism to be eradicated.
Dr Shamroz Afghan described it as an ‘inherently racist apartheid system based on Jewish supremacy’.
In a second post, Dr Afghan wrote that Gaza was a ‘military testing ground, organ harvesting area… where tourists go to watch bombs be dropped on people’.
And in December Dr Oyin Abiki, from NHS North East, described Hamas as a ‘liberation army’.
Since October 7, Israel has been accused of ‘genocide’ by pro-Palestinian activists, and of starving hundreds of Gazans to death.
International bodies previously declared a famine in areas of the Gaza Strip and countries including the UK have recently recognised Palestine’s right to statehood amid backlash over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict since October 7.
Campaigners have warned that anger at the treatment of Palestinians since has allowed extreme anti-Semitism to ‘fester unchecked’ in the medical profession, including the NHS.
The Mail previously covered the case of Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a trauma and orthopaedics doctor, who described the Holocaust as a ‘concept’ and said she would ‘never condemn’ the October 7 attack.
A recent tribunal allowed her to keep her job – to the outrage of Health Secretary Wes Streeting – after a series of posts emerged which also saw her describe a hospital in north London as a ‘Jewish supremacy cesspit’.
The trainee surgeon appeared to deny the Holocaust as she described it as a ‘concept’ and ‘a fabricated victim narrative’.
Another post reads: ‘I will never condemn the 7th of October’.
As well as slaughtering 1,200 Israelis, Hamas fighters have been accused of brutal acts of sexual violence against their victims, both men and women.
Dr Aladwan and Dr Khan have posted shared posts on social media denying this took place – with Dr Khan reposting claims that Israeli women ‘lied’.
This week the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled last month that no suspension was necessary, following a referral from the General Medical Council.
The tribunal ruled there was not sufficient evidence to show that Dr Aladwan posed a real risk to patients, despite warnings that Jewish patients may feel unsafe in her care.
Following the ruling, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he had no faith in the medical regulator.
‘The racist language of ‘Jewish supremacy’ reflects the values of Nazis, not the NHS,’ he wrote on X.
‘I fail to see how medics using such language with impunity doesn’t undermine confidence in the medical profession. I have no confidence in our regulation system.’
But now the General Medical Council, which had brought that original case demanding she be suspended, has now had the case referred back to the MPTS.
Law firm Rahman Lowe, representing Dr Aladwan, has hit back at Mr Streeting’s comments in a letter to the Health Secretary.
In a statement, the London based company said: ‘The letter expresses grave concern about the minister’s intervention in live quasi-judicial proceedings, without knowledge of the evidence or submissions before the MPTS.
‘The comments, made in apparent alignment with complainants, undermines the independence of regulatory and judicial processes and raise serious questions about the Secretary of State’s adherence to the Ministerial Code, the House of Commons Code of Conduct, and the principle of the Rule of Law.
‘We have demanded that the Minister ceases all further commentary or involvement in Dr Aladwan’s case, and that he discloses details of any meetings or communications held with complainants or the GMC.’
Around 500 complaints relating to 123 doctors have been submitted to the General Medical Council (GMC) since the Hamas attacks, according to figures obtained by Jewish News.
