ŞANLIURFA – Doğan News Agency
Two Syrian journalists have been murdered in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa in what is presumed to be an attack by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
İbrahim Abdulkadir, managing editor at Syrian Ayn Vatan newspaper and Firaz Hamadi, a reporter for the same newspaper, had fled the conflict in Syria for Şanlıurfa, where they shared a flat.
Their dead bodies were found by seven of their Syrian friends, who called the police and made an emergency appeal.
Reports indicate that one or more assailants, who remain unidentified, slit the throats of the reporters using a hunting knife.
It is claimed that both journalists were members of the Free Syrian Army and had been receiving death threats from ISIL for publishing reports against the jihadist organization.
The journalists’ bodies were transferred to the Forensic Medicine Institute for an autopsy.
Meanwhile, police detained the seven Syrians who found the murdered journalists’ bodies and called for help, in order to take their testimonies.
The investigation into the double homicides continues.