Murder Investigation After Birmingham Man Kidnapped And Tortured Dies

5 July 2019, 12:37 | Updated: 5 July 2019, 12:41

Detectives have launched a murder investigation following the death of a man three months after he was kidnapped from his Birmingham home and tortured.

Polish national Tomasz Samel, aged 45, was taken from his home on Raleigh Close, Handsworth, in a white van by men police are now trying to identify.

They escorted him to the vehicle, a white Peugeot Boxer, before driving away, at around 8.45am on 27 March.

At 10.45pm that day, he banged on the door of a property in Bickerstaffe, Lancashire, to get help.

Suffering from 75 per cent burns, he was taken to hospital by ambulance.

Mr Samel died in a specialist burns unit in Liverpool on 21 June.

 In the CCTV footage, the men are seen going into a shop before getting into the white van #HeartNews https://t.co/WPWpdwM7CF

— Heart West Midlands News (@HeartWMidsNews) July 5, 2019

Today officers launched a major appeal to establish the identity of his killers, as they released clear CCTV footage of two suspects. 

They are also trying to establish the current location of the van, which was displaying the registration OY55 MVT. It had previously been seen in Bristol and the Banbury area of Oxfordshire.