Mayday - Bonus: The Canister on the Bed

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“The crime scene had been left unguarded for two weeks”. What really happened in the Douma massacre? This episode is a diversion from the story of the life and death of James Le Mesurier. It’s about one of the most contested events in the war - the chemical attack in the town of Douma in 2018. Unravelling what really happened there takes us to the heart of the global race to control the narrative of the Syrian war. Mayday tells the extraordinary real story of the man who organised the White Helmets – rescuers who film themselves pulling survivors from bombed out buildings in rebel-held areas of Syria – and investigates claims that, far from being heroes, they are part of a very elaborate hoax. James Le Mesurier – his detractors say – was a British secret agent, pulling the strings. So when his body was found by worshippers on their way to morning prayers, there were a lot questions. This episode contains a description of the aftermath of a chemical attack. This episode has been edited since original publication following a complaint. https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/mayday-the-canister-on-the-bed-radio-4-20-november-2020 Produced, written and presented by Chloe Hadjimatheou Editor: Emma Rippon Researcher: Tom Wright Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman Sound Design and Mixing by Neil Churchill With additional mixing by Graham Puddifoot and Gareth Jones Arabic translation and additional research: Vanessa Bowles, Abdul Kader Habak Turkish Researcher: Nevin Sungur Narrative Consultant: John Yorke Original music: Nick Mundy Final track Zamilou by Bu Kolthoum

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts
0:09.4	On a freezing cold day in February 2015, a thin, middle-aged man with a moustache walked
0:16.1	into a police station in Berlin to ask for help. He told the officers he thought he was
0:21.5	being followed by the Syrian Intelligence Service, and he wanted protection. The German
0:28.3	police were understandably skeptical, so he explained that he was a defector from the
0:34.1	Syrian regime, a former military colonel. This was Anwar Raslan, and for 18 years he climbed
0:46.7	the ranks of the Syrian Intelligence Services until he ran one of the most notorious detention
0:52.8	facilities in the state, known as Branch 251 in Damascus. People who make it out of
1:02.6	their alive, which is by no means a given, are marked for life by the terrible torture
1:08.7	they've undergone there. By 2014, Raslan had left Syria and was living as a refugee
1:16.4	in Germany. When he entered that police station a year later seeking protection, he inadvertently
1:23.8	outed himself. The police passed the information onto special investigators, and after a long
1:30.0	protracted investigation, he was arrested at the start of 2020.
1:35.0	Today, Anwar Raslan faces charges of overseeing the torture of more than 4,000 people and the
1:45.0	death of 58, all this over a period of just 15 months. If he's convicted, he'll be facing
1:54.0	a life sentence. Raslan denies all the charges. This is the first trial of its kind, focusing
2:04.4	on the alleged crimes of a member of the Syrian regime, but it isn't the only case from
2:09.4	the Syrian war going through the German courts.
2:12.3	Criminal complaint against the Syrian regime has been filed. I demand for justice for the
2:16.6	hundreds of victims of chemical attacks carried out in Syria in 2013 and again in 2017.
2:23.2	The case is set to offer a rare legal avenue for action against the government of President
2:27.1	Bashar al-Assad attempts to set up an international...
	...

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