The FBI is probing the murders of Syrian-American journalist and onetime ABC News freelancer Halla Barakat and her mother in Turkey, but Turkish authorities have so far declined U.S. offers to assist in the investigation, ABC News has learned.Halla, 23, and her mother Orouba, 60 — both of whom were active in the opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria — were strangled and stabbed to death in the apartment they shared in Istanbul in September. Their bodies were doused with a chemical solution that delayed the decomposition of their remains, police said, an indication that the killer could have been a professional.
Halla was born in Raleigh, N.C., and the FBI has legal jurisdiction to investigate the homicide of any American citizen killed overseas. A representative of the Barakat family who had recently met with senior Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., told ABC News that the FBI’s legal attache in Turkey called the family in the U.S. to inform them that the FBI has opened a case. Without cooperation from local authorities, however, the FBI’s investigative capabilities are limited.
In a letter to a Muslim civil rights group that had been calling for the FBI to investigate their deaths, George Piro, the assistant director of the FBI’s international operations division, wrote that while U.S. government “offered FBI analysis and assistance” to the local authorities, the Turkish National Police “respectfully declined the FBI’s assistance,” though they are sharing some information."The TNP is awaiting forensic evidence to be analyzed and currently has a suspect in custody who is strongly believed to be the perpetrator of the homicide of Halla and Orouba Barakat," Piro wrote to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the letter, a copy of which can be read below. “Due to jurisdictional legalities, the TNP will continue to work this matter and provide updates to our Legal Attache office in Ankara.”
FBI officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Halla was a reporter for the Syrian opposition outlet Orient News who worked on an ABC News investigation into war crimes committed by Iraqi special forces, while Orouba was an active figure in the Syrian Opposition Council, a group of Syrian expatriates that stand against the Assad regime, so their work could have made them targets. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating “whether [Halla’s] death was work-related,” while Orouba told an ABC News reporter shortly before her death that she had been gathering critical evidence implicating the Assad regime in gross human rights violations.
Halla was born in Raleigh, N.C., and the FBI has legal jurisdiction to investigate the homicide of any American citizen killed overseas. A representative of the Barakat family who had recently met with senior Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., told ABC News that the FBI’s legal attache in Turkey called the family in the U.S. to inform them that the FBI has opened a case. Without cooperation from local authorities, however, the FBI’s investigative capabilities are limited.
In a letter to a Muslim civil rights group that had been calling for the FBI to investigate their deaths, George Piro, the assistant director of the FBI’s international operations division, wrote that while U.S. government “offered FBI analysis and assistance” to the local authorities, the Turkish National Police “respectfully declined the FBI’s assistance,” though they are sharing some information."The TNP is awaiting forensic evidence to be analyzed and currently has a suspect in custody who is strongly believed to be the perpetrator of the homicide of Halla and Orouba Barakat," Piro wrote to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the letter, a copy of which can be read below. “Due to jurisdictional legalities, the TNP will continue to work this matter and provide updates to our Legal Attache office in Ankara.”
FBI officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Halla was a reporter for the Syrian opposition outlet Orient News who worked on an ABC News investigation into war crimes committed by Iraqi special forces, while Orouba was an active figure in the Syrian Opposition Council, a group of Syrian expatriates that stand against the Assad regime, so their work could have made them targets. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating “whether [Halla’s] death was work-related,” while Orouba told an ABC News reporter shortly before her death that she had been gathering critical evidence implicating the Assad regime in gross human rights violations.