BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

From BBC Radio 4, a new series from Intrigue, Mayday.

On November 11th, 2019, James Lemezra was found dead in Istanbul.

You might recognise the name.

He was an ex-British army officer who helped set up the white helmets in Syria.

Ordinary people living in rebel-held areas trained to save civilians in the aftermath of bomb attacks.

This is one of their videos.

Men in blue fleece jackets and white helmets pick their way across a sea of bricks.

A woman in a hijab tells them her daughter Ayyaz missing.

The white helmets start digging.

It seems impossible that anyone could be alive under there, but then they uncover a tiny face.

They've saved a child.

In a vicious war where so many have died, this is a glimpse of hope and heroism.

Isn't it?

A group of people back here in the UK and the governments in Damascus and Moscow say the white helmets aren't heroes at all.

The rescues, they say, are staged.

The children are faking it, none of it's real.

They say it's part of the greatest hopes in history.

And James Lemezra, they say, was a British secret service agent pulling the strings.

So when he showed up dead last year, there were lots of questions.

The stories that he committed suicide actually sounds more like a purely English murder.

I'm Chloe Hachemathau and I've spent the last year investigating the white helmets and James Lemezra,

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