tonight, a champion of justice, an enemy of the state. >> i believe it's unfair, there's no human rights at all. >> found killed in cold blood. >> an american journalist was murdered, and no one gave a damn. >> now the years-long investigation, a recanted confession. could it have been a hit? and who ordered it? >> greetings from the golden condor, assad soldiers are everywhere. >> a family's demands for justice and what the american government could do now. this special edition of "nightline," "justice for halla," will be right back.

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♪ you can go your own way. xfinity mobile's fast nationwide 5g network meets the first iphone with 5g. get the new iphone 12 on xfinity mobile. and right now, get $250 off. learn more at an xfinity store today. ♪ there's some stories that live with you. and for me, it's what happened to halla. an american journalist brutally murdered along with her mother in istanbul, turkey. >> didn't make sense. the pieces of the puzzle didn't fit.

>> blood spattered everywhere. authorities say this was a crime of passion, but others believe the evidence here points to something else. >> turkey can be a dangerous place for journalists. >> the details are out there somewhere. >> these women mattered. they mattered. >> what happened to halla and her mother aruba would take me and an international team of journalists and investigators on a years-long journey around the globe. >> can you please describe the knife wounds that you saw? >> there was really only one person who could tell us exactly what happened that night. >> i'm going to ask him directly if he killed halla and >> you just say, i did not kill anyone. >> i first met halla barracot when she came bounding into our

offices, young journalist, full of enthusiasm, a lot of promise. >> 20 years old, starting her career. >> born in raleigh, north carolina, when her mother aruba was living with cousin suzanne's family. >> halla, which means beauty, was so beautiful ever since she was a little girl. >> if i could describe halla in one word, one word only, i would say that she was alive. in that she wasn't afraid of her emotions. >> hello, viewers, this is halla barracat reporting from istanbul. >> aruba became a vocal member of the syrian opposition. >> we will stay here in camps -- >> which was working against the regime in damascus, led by president bashar al assad. >> this is actually a very harmful regime, and they don't really care about our people. >> they felt the assad regime is

brutal, and there's no justice in syria as long as he and his naturally ha family have been in charge. halla was last heard from, f her colleague, when she didn't show up to work. her colleague called her friends. >> halla's friend went to check on her, and there was no answer when she knocked on the door to the apartment. >> so the police came. they had a locksmith who opened the door. that's when they saw the bodies. >> there was a shocking video on al arabiya. it showed an absolutely grisly crime scene. >> the bodies had been covered in blankets. detergent had been sprinkled on the blood on the floor. >> that seemed to be a way to conceal their odor from decomposition, which would give the killer or killers time to get away. days to get away. >> it was suspect from the beginning.

>> there was no screaming heard by any of the neighbors. >> i think it shocked the community. the turkish media took interest. but the international media, it was just kind of a story that quickly passed through. >> about a week after the killings, there's a break in the case. turkish police arrest the young syrian named ahmed barricot outside istanbul. he was a distant cousin of halla and aruba's and he confesses to the murders. >> living in turkey a few months, by his own confession struggling to support himself in damascus after a stint in the free syrian army. >> though aruba barely knew him, she offered him help. >> security camera footage places ahmed in the neighborhood that night. he's seen on the route to their apartment. the last time he's picked up is a few blocks away. then on the morning after the murder, 11:00 a.m., he can be seen leaving along a similar

route in the opposite direction. >> what happened to them is so gruesome and horrific and unacceptable. their lives mattered. and it matters that we know what happened and why it happened. and to hold those people accountable. >> suzanne barra cot, a young fit in the san francisco bay area who was halla and aruba's cousin, took on the mantle not only of being the family's representative, but spearheading an effort to find out what happened to them. >> at those meetings they promised that the case of halla

barra cot was a high priority in the trump administration. then there was a long period of silence where suzanne heard nothing from the government. >> no one following up with the families to see how they can be of support, no outrage within the american government to say what the hell are you guys doing? how is this permissible? let's stay on top of it, let's figure out what happened. >> that's when our team got involved at reveal, the center for investigative reporting. we obtained the turkish prosecutor's report. the first thing we find is ahmed's dna is found under aruba's fingernails. that's pretty damning. >> according to the prosecutor's report, eventually confesses, through a court translator, telling investigators that he had killed aruba in a dispute over money, a kind of crime of passion. >> aruba and ahmed berracot hadt an altercation. >> things got violent, she defended herself, killed aruba,

and halla witnessing this wouldn't stop screaming so he killed halla too. >> confession, dna, camera footage, it's a cut and dry case. >> when you lack at that crime scene, it raises obvious questions. >> there's the detergent. witnesses say it was sprinkled wherever there was blood spattered on the floor. that seems like an unusually sober step for someone to have taken who's in the midst of a crime of passion. >> there's this question from the beginning, given how outspoken these women were, how professional the killings seemed to be, was this politically motivated? was it a hit job? >> so a few days after the murders, aruba's twitter account was hacked. a picture of assad and this kind of cryptic message appeared on her account. greetingsthe golden condor, assad's soldiers are everywhere. was this a clue or just a coincidence?

>> forensic experts who examine crime scene swabs say that foreign dna was found under aruba's fingernail, and that dna matches ahmed's profile. but the autopsy report says no foreign dna was found anywhere on aruba's body. so there's a contradiction there. that's the only piece of physical evidence that actually puts ahmed inside the apartment. but investigators, their first impression was that both women had been killed, quote-unquote, slaughter style, by a single cut to the throat. it's muslim tradition for the family members of the deceased to wash their bodies before burial. so shaza, aruba's sister and halla's aunt, would have been one of the last people to see them. so we called her in syria to see what she remembers from that day.

>> hello, shaza? salaam. the turkish prosecutor in their report said that each victim was stabbed with a knife in the front. very deep stab wounds. you oversaw halla and dr. aruba being washed for burial and prepared for burial. can you please describe the knife wounds that you saw? >> the autopsy reports are painting a picture of kind of a wild -- >> crime of passion? >> crime of passion. >> what shaza is describing sounds more like a sneak attack in a sense, surprising somebody from behind, cutting their throat. >> more of a precise,

professional hit. >> absolutely. >> hey, my name's pete madden, i'm an abc news reporter. i'm calling to book travel and accommodations to istanbul. >> at this point there was really only one person who could tell us exactly what happened that night. >> 11:20 tomorrow night, okay. yeah, let's do that. >> the convicted killer, ahmed barakat. he'd appealed his conviction. under turkish law, if your case is under appeal, you can meet with a certified turkish lawyer. i decided to fly to turkey, see if we could track ahmed down. so we're heading to the jail where the convicted killer, ahmed barakat, is being killed. abc hired a lawyer to go in and ask him a couple of questions. so we're hoping today's going to be a big day.

>> what are some of the key questions we're going to ask him? >> i'm going to ask him directly if he was the one doing it or not. if he killed halla and aruba barakat. >> good luck. >> thank you. >> good luck. >> thank you. >> don't be scared. ♪ alexa, tell roomba to vacuum in front of the couch. experience clean in a whole new way. now roomba offers you personalized cleaning suggestions and vacuums exactly where you need it. by getting to know you and your home, roomba makes cleaning easier than ever before. so say goodbye to cleaning and hello to clean. hey google, tell roomba to vacuum the dining room table. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. (groans) hmph...

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♪ at this point, we're outside the prison where the convicted killer is being held, ahmed barakat, a distant relative of halla and orouba, who authorities say killed them in a crime of passion in a dispute over money. we're finally about to find out his side of the story. >> okay, that was fast. >> hi. he answered the questions. >> yay. >> he did, yes. >> ahmed only speaks arabic. ahmed wrote out his responses. we had a translator read them in the car. >> you've been convicted of murdering halla and orouba barakat, did you do it? he just said, i did not kill anyone. >> in his written responses,

ahmed said he was innocent of everything. >> if you did it, were you alone? and his answer is, i didn't do it, and when i went to orouba to visit her, i was alone. and the cameras did see that. did anyone tell you to do it, if so, who? his answer is, i don't know anything, why am i even involved? >> ahmed said he'd been coerced into a confession, thinking he would get a good deal. >> ahmed was now fully recanting his initial confession. at this point, we didn't really know what to think.

>> i still think about that. he had a bracelet, a "free syria" bracelet that was taken from the crime scene, still had blood on it. on his shelf he had a picture album full of pictures of halla when she was young. >> we spoke to confidential sortses in the government throughout our investigation who cast a lot of suspicion on the assad regime in this. but in the end the fbi provided a statement that said that the turkish government had done a thorough investigation, they had elicited a confession from a

suspect, and that the fbi had no further information to question the investigation done in turkey. >> it's pretty devastating. what does this mean as an american citizen, if i were to travel abroad and something happened to me? something happened to you? i really hope that our government will take this seriously. and realize that there are a lot of people who care about halla and dr. orouba, and they are not forgotten, and we will continue to fight to find justice in their names. >> i took our findings to congressman david price of north carolina. who knows the barakat family, has had his own questions about these murders. >> you think the trump administration dropped the ball on this? >> i think this is the administration failing to pursue an important case. the answer is yes. we need to press for a -- an investigation of the trial circumstances. it involves the state department, it involves our

diplomacy, and it involves some work with our supposed friends and allies in turkey. >> halla and orouba's case has been in limbo for a number of years. but there is a person at the united nations, dr. callamar, whose specialty is investigating the murders of journalists around the world. >> what i can tell you, that i have received information regarding this case. and in the case of mrs. and miss barakat, there are allegations that the work they were doing denouncing the violations by the syrian government, or indeed by daesh, may have been the motivation behind their killings. my objective is to determine whether the investigation has

met the standards it should meet under international law. was it effective? was it impartial? was it independent? did it consider all the possible motivations behind the killings? >> i feel like halla barakat is the forgotten american journalist. >> experts have said that killing a journalist is the ultimate form of censorship. >> maybe while continuing to dig deeper and turn over every rock, somebody will pay attention to what happened to them. shall i put her in snow mode? nope! what about off-road mode? nah. sport mode it is. let's see what this baby can do.

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♪ ♪ for more on hall what barakat's case, download the audio documentary from our partners at reveal for the center for investigative reporting and prx at revealnews.org. that's "nightline" for tonight. thanks for staying up with us. have a great weekend, america.