Ahmet Barakat given two life sentences for murder of Orouba Barakat and her daughter Halla

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A Turkish court has handed down two life sentences to a Syrian man for the murder of a Syrian opposition activist and her Syrian-American journalist daughter in Istanbul last year, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The bodies of Orouba Barakat and her daughter Halla were found in September in their apartment on Istanbul’s Asian side.

The elder Barakat, a prominent political opponent of the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, had been investigating reports of torture in prisons run by the Syrian government, Turkish media said at the time.

Her daughter, who was born in the US, was an editor at Orient Net, a pro-Syrian opposition website, and had also worked as a freelancer for the US TV network ABC.

Days after the killings, Turkish police arrested a distant relative of the women, Ahmet Barakat, in the city of Bursa. The motive for the murders remains unknown, media have reported.

Police identified Ahmet Barakat by CCTV footage and arrested him after a three-day operation, the Hürriyet newspaper said.

Orient Net described Halla Barakat as a tireless editor and investigator, and her mother as prominent opponent of Assad.

The US state department said last year it was deeply saddened by their deaths and called Orouba’s work “courageous”.