October 06, 2017•Update: October 06, 2017
By Filiz Kinik
ISTANBUL
A Turkish court remanded into custody a suspect on Friday over the fatal stabbings of a Syrian anti-Bashar al-Assad activist and her journalist daughter in Istanbul.
The Syrian suspect, identified only by the initials A.B., was arrested in the northwestern province of Bursa on Sept. 30 after being spotted on security footage from the apartment building, a police source said.
The bodies of Orouba Barakat, 60, and her 22-year-old daughter Halla Barakat were found in their apartment in Uskudar, a neighborhood on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, on Sept. 21.
The alarm was raised after Halla Barakat did not go to work for two days and colleagues contacted police.
In a Facebook post, Orouba Barakat’s sister Shaza said they had been "assassinated" by the "hand of injustice and tyranny" -- a reference to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Syrian Revolution Network, an opposition media group, said Orouba Barakat had been a human rights activist who had opposed the regime of Hafez al-Assad and of his son Bashar's, since the 1980s.
The deaths are not the first tragedy to hit the family in recent years.
In February 2015, Deah Barakat, a cousin based in the U.S., was shot dead alongside with his wife and her sister in North Carolina.
Shaza Barakat’s son was killed by the Syrian regime.
