The Messiah and his Kittens (Pt 1) - The Mahdi wears Armani
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first episode of a new four-part series, The Sunday Times's award-winning Middle East Correspondent, Louise Callaghan, tries to get to grips with one of the most bizarre stories she's ever covered.
In January last year, the leader of Turkey's most powerful cult was sentenced to over 1,000 years in prison. But what happened?
This podcast series will be released every Friday here on Stories of our times for the next four weeks.
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Host: Louise Callaghan, Middle East Correspondent at The Sunday Times.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's Manvine here. |
| 0:02.0 | Today's episode is the first in our new four-part series |
| 0:05.3 | about a Turkish cult leader and his followers. |
| 0:09.1 | It's hosted by my colleague Louise Callaghan, |
| 0:12.0 | the Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times. |
| 0:14.7 | This is part one of the Messiah and his kittens. |
| 0:19.4 | Before we begin, a warning that some listeners might find what you're about to hear distressing. |
| 0:25.3 | In January last year, I was at home in Istanbul when my phone started going crazy. |
| 0:31.1 | It was lighting up with notifications from Turkish news outlets and messages from my friends, all saying the same thing. |
| 0:37.4 | The trial was over. |
| 0:39.3 | Adnan Oktar was going down. |
| 0:45.2 | I was transfixed. The man who was being led away from an Istanbul courtroom was the leader of Turkey's |
| 0:51.9 | most bizarre and most powerful cult. |
| 0:55.0 | The 65-year-old had been sentenced to over a thousand years in jail |
| 1:00.0 | for crimes including forming and leading a criminal gang, fraud and sexual abuse. |
| 1:05.0 | For years, I'd heard rumors and allegations. |
| 1:09.0 | I knew there was something extremely weird and probably |
| 1:12.5 | extremely bad going on, but I had no idea it would end like this. So what happened? |
| 1:24.4 | You're listening to The Messiah and His Kittens, a podcast brought to you by The Times and the Sunday Times. |
| 1:30.1 | I'm Louise Callaghan, the Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times. |
| 1:33.9 | In this podcast series, I'm going to investigate what lay beneath the brash, gaudy exterior of Turkey's most powerful cult. |
| 1:40.7 | I'll try to understand more through those that were involved. |
... |
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