TO his patients, he was the surgeon who greeted them with a big smile and a hug, even if they hadn’t seen him for years.
To Marbella, he was a big name: a polished, well-connected doctor whose clients flew in from more than 40 countries.
Dr Alexander Aslani, 57, was shot dead inside his upmarket Cirumed clinic on Wednesday evening, in a crime that has even shocked the Costa del Crime.
Aslani was at work as normal shortly before 6pm when a masked gunman, reportedly one of two who arrived by motorbike, walked into his office and shot him several times in the head. Paramedics could not save him.
As police hunt his killers, those who knew him are trying to make sense of the loss of a man they describe as warm, talented and, at times, ‘a little arrogant’.
Aslani’s early academic work, much of it published in German, was in reconstructive surgery.
He was a member of the German Society of Plastic Surgeons as well as American and international bodies.
A veteran Marbella journalist who interviewed him for a local magazine a decade ago remembers a far humbler operation.
Aslani worked from a single-room office in the town centre, with a secretary at a desk so small it barely counted as a reception.
His profile rose fast though. From 2008 to 2018 he headed the plastic surgery departments at the prestigious Quiron hospitals in Malaga and Marbella.
So fast was his rising star, in 2016 he was named Spain’s best plastic surgeon.
Then in 2018 he went it alone with Cirumed, specialising in ‘body contouring’.
By his own clinic’s count he performed more than 14,000 operations, over 7,000 of them Brazilian butt lifts, and pioneered a hybrid technique combining fat transfer with implants.
The clinic marketed him as the go-to surgeon for influencers, models and celebrities. International patients could recover in a private villa reserved for his clinic.
Away from the luxury market, he also volunteered with the humanitarian surgery charity Interplast.
One local patient, Angie Meszaros, first met Aslani six years ago, alongside her husband.
“From that very first moment he just connected with us so naturally,” she told The Olive Press. “He immediately understood our personalities.”
The relationship began as a professional one, but over the years they became close. They might go months without speaking, yet nothing changed when they met.
“What I remember most about Alexander was how friendly and approachable he was,” she said. “He was always smiling, always laughing. Even if a year or two or three had passed, he would greet us with the same big smile and hug.”
One of his assistants also became a close friend, giving Angie a view of the people around him.
“Alexander was someone people really loved,” she said. “He was a very talented and highly respected surgeon, but for me he was much more than just a doctor.”
Journalist Giles Brown, now a presenter on TRE radio station explained: “He was always well dressed, always very smooth, a little bit arrogant, but hey. Beautiful house. Big guy, big name.”
The Olive Press has established that Aslani had a German wife and two daughters, both in private school on the coast.
“He was a wonderful person, a great family man and someone who genuinely cared about people,” continued Angie.
No one has been arrested. Malaga broadcaster 101TV reports detectives are examining whether a foreign family blamed him for a relative who died during surgery.
An Olive Press National Police source described the killing as ‘extremely strange’. “We are trying to work out who on earth could be behind it,” he said. “But as you know in Marbella, it could be one of many.”
For Angie, the question of who matters less than the loss.
“His death has been so incredibly shocking and heartbreaking,” she said. “It’s still very difficult for me to believe that he’s gone.”
Click here to read more Marbella News from The Olive Press.
