An American Murder in Istanbul: Justice for Halla

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An American journalist and her mom are found murdered in Istanbul. Police say they caught the killer. Friends and family say the investigation was incomplete. In collaboration with ABC News and freelance reporter Fariba Nawa, we dig into the investigative files against the convicted killer and learn that the U.S. government chose not to get involved in the investigation.

This show was originally released on Oct. 10, 2020.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal.
0:06.8	I'm Al Edson.
0:09.2	One morning in September 2017, James Gordon-Mek was getting ready to go to work at ABC News
0:15.4	in Washington, where he's a national security reporter.
0:19.1	His phone beeped with a message.
0:21.7	It was very early in the morning, and the message was from one of my colleagues who lives
0:25.8	in Istanbul, Turkey.
0:27.8	I said the two people I knew and had worked with had been found stabbed to death in their
0:32.2	apartment there.
0:33.8	Their names were Hala Barakat and Uruba Barakat.
0:37.8	Hala was just 23 years old.
0:40.6	Uruba was her mom.
0:42.4	We first brought you their story last fall, and since then, we followed new developments.
0:48.4	Hala and Uruba lived and worked in Istanbul.
0:52.2	Hala was an up-and-coming journalist and an American citizen.
0:56.3	The Barakat family is originally from Syria, but Uruba was living with relatives in North
1:00.6	Carolina when she gave birth to Hala.
1:02.9	When Hala was a toddler, they moved back to Syria, and a few years later, they moved
1:07.4	to the United Arab Emirates.
1:09.6	In 2011, the Syrian civil war started.
1:19.4	Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad, tried to crush the uprising.
1:23.2	His regime even dropped nerve gas on his own people.
	...

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