THE former British army officer who helped found Syria’s White Helmets rebel organisation was found dead in Istanbul yesterday.

James Le Mesurier’s body was discovered in the street outside his home in the Turkish city’s Beyoglu district.

The Istanbul governor’s office said that “comprehensive administrative and judicial investigations” have been initiated into the death, but that police have established that no-one entered or left his home at the time of the “incident,” to which there are no reported witnesses, and that officials believe he may have fallen to his death by accident.