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The Khartoum Silence: Double Murder, Locked Doors, and the Unregistered Car That Caught the Killer · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're immersing ourselves in
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a case of well profound silence. A double murder in Khartoum,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: one of the city's most privileged neighborhoods.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, place where the killer moved like a phantom, really
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: left behind a locked door. Maybe two hundred potential suspects
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: and almost no obvious forensic trace.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: So our mission today is to understand the meticulous planning
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: involved and also that single almost casual mistake that finally
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: broke what we're calling the Khartoum silence.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Right, So, the year is twenty twenty one. The setting
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: it's this sprawling, secure, four story residence, and the victims
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Fuctor Magde Rashid forty three, a very successfully and t specialist,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: and his mother and his mother I'm a Mohammed Turk,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: seventy five years old.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing started quietly, didn't it, Not with
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a bang, but with absence.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly for three days, doctor Magni just vanished, missed appointments
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: at his busy practice. Both his and his mother's phones
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: were switched off, highly unusual for him. That's what finally
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: prompted his cousin to Filo or report. Most of the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: immediate family actually lived abroad, so it took a little
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: while for the alarm to be properly raised.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the police arrive and at first glance, the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: house seems.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Normal, really normal. Yes, windows locked, doors secure, zero sign
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: of forced entry. You could almost think it was a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: false alarm.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: But that changed fast.
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  Speaker 2: Oh instantly, as soon as that main gate swung open.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Any idea of normality just evaporated. Wasn't something they saw first.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It was the smell.
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  Speaker 2: It was the smell, that overwhelming, putrid odor of decay.
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  Speaker 2: It was so intense to just pulled the officers straight
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: through the otherwise pristine garden area towards the service room,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: towards that small unventilated service room.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Attached to the house, and that's where they found him,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Magdie.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, doctor Magdie's body bound, hand and foot forced into
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: an kneeling position. The heat, the humidity, decomposition was very advanced.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And the cause of death brutal.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Extremely severe repeated blows to the back of the head.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Pathologist determined it was inflicted with some kind of sharp instrument.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a scene of intense violence there. But then
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: upstairs the story changes doesn't it. It becomes about calculation completely.
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  Speaker 2: They moved to the mother's apartment and outside her door
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: maybe the most chilling detail of the entire scene, the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: locked door locked from the outside, and sitting right there
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: on the floor outside the locked door was a small
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: plastic bag of fruit and a watermelon untouched.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, like a snapshot of the moment someone tried to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: deliver something.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And couldn't precisely. And inside they found Amal, the mother,
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  Speaker 2: in her living room. Her body was well, it was
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: remarkably preserved.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: She was confusing at first, very.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Confusing because the air conditioning in her apartment had been
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: running continuously since she died, keeping the room cold exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Her death was different too, suffocation a likely smothering. It
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: seemed swift, designed purely for silence, not like the u
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: the rage implied in her son's killing.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, unpacked this a bit. Two victims, two very different methods,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a door locked from the outside, one body decaying rapidly,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the other preserved by ac Everything points to an inside job,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: someone familiar. But the physical evidence, the locked doors, it
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: suggests the house was sealed tight. What were the biggest
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: contradictions right at the start?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Well, The main one was access. How did the killer
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: get in? Forensics were clear zero forced.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Entry, so either someone let them in.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Which seemed highly unlikely. Hey imal, the mother was known
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: for being incredibly cautious strict security routine. She apparently never
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: opened the door for anyone unexpected, not even.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Deliveries, hence the food left outside.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Hence the fruit or the other option, the killer had
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a key, maybe a copy, a half copy, they called it.
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  Speaker 1: Which immediately shifts the focus, doesn't it, away from random
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  Speaker 1: attackers towards someone who knew the family, knew the routine.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, someone familiar with the households inner workings.
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  Speaker 1: And we know robbery was a motive. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Things were missing, yes, confirm cash gold, both doctor Magde's
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  Speaker 2: and his mother's mobile phones all gone.
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  Speaker 1: But there was one specific missing item that really changed
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  Speaker 1: the game, suggesting this wasn't just a burglary gone wrong.
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  Speaker 2: The car. Doctor Magdie's brand new car, current model, year,
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  Speaker 2: bought just weeks before, and crucially, it wasn't registered yet unregistered.
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  Speaker 1: Why was that detail so important for the investigation, Well,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: think about it.
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  Speaker 2: An unregistered car is incredibly difficult to move, especially across
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  Speaker 2: state lines in Sudan checkpoints would flag it.
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  Speaker 1: Immediately, right, So whoever took it knew how to handle
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that exactly.
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  Speaker 2: It suggests the killer didn't just know the family was wealthy,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: but knew the specific timing of this high value, high
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  Speaker 2: risk purchase. That just screamed surveillance, careful plant and.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: They knew how to handle the security too.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, the main gay camera smashed wire's cut. The
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: perpetrator knew the cameras blind spots perfectly avoi did all
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: other surveillance really sophisticated.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: But then the forensic contradiction. This almost them off track,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: didn't it?
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  Speaker 2: It really did. They found no usable fingerprints, which points
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to gloves. Very careful, okay, But they found multiple distinct shoeprints, different.
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  Speaker 1: Sizes, different sizes, so more than one person.
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  Speaker 2: That was the initial theory, A team, a group of killers,
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  Speaker 2: which seemed to fit the sophistication, but clashed with.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Other elements like the sheer brutality against doctor Magdi. Let's
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: go back to that medical detail, the time gap.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Right. The Emmy's report suggested about a ten minute gap
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: between the first blows to doctor Magnie's head and the
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: final fatal ones.
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  Speaker 1: What does that tell you.
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  Speaker 2: It suggests a sequence killer strikes first to incapacitate him,
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  Speaker 2: probably ties him up, then then starts the robbery upstairs. Okay,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: but during the looting, maybe he hears something, sees something,
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  Speaker 2: realizes Doctor Magnee is stirring regaining consciousness, so he has
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: to go back.
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  Speaker 1: Down and finish the job violently.
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  Speaker 2: Violently, repeatedly. It shows someone who might have initially planned
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: for incapacitation or opportunistic theft, but became chillingly calculated and
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: brutal when faced with resistance or the risk of being identified.
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  Speaker 1: So with the evidence pointing inwards, the investigation casts this
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  Speaker 1: huge net. Over two hundred people questioned.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Neighbors, staff, family members, anyone connected. And this is where
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the family dynamics really came under the microscope. It led
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: police down a path towards a very prominent red herring.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Doctor Magdie's sister gotta yes, there.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Was serious bad blood. There a really deep, long running
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: dispute over inheritance from their father. The relationship was completely.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Broken and it wasn't just emotional, it was legal too.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Write this Hujjar case.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, Doctor Maggie had recently filed what's known as
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a Hujjar case. For listeners, that's essentially a legal motion
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: in Sudanese law, like a guardianship claim.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: You could declare someone unfit often yes.
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  Speaker 2: To argue someone is maybe mentally unwell or incompetent to
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: manage their affairs, or even a danger to others. Doctor
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Magdie was using it to claim Goda was a danger.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: To their mother, which had already led to her being
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a vict from the family home.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Correct. So you can see the motive there, intense anger, resentment,
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  Speaker 2: potential revenge. It looked very strong.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And the police found proof of this conflict.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: They found an audio recording of Gotta discussing the dispute.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That discovery basically made her the prime suspect. Almost immediately
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: she was arrested, but she was relieved. Why intense questioning, Yes,
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  Speaker 2: But ultimately, despite that really strong motive, they couldn't find
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  Speaker 2: a single shred of physical evidence linking her to the
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  Speaker 2: crime scene. Nothing. Okay, She absolutely insisted, despite everything, she'd
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: never harm her mother or her brother. So with no evidence,
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  Speaker 2: they had to let her go.
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  Speaker 1: So the police hit a wall. The sister angled, dried up.
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  Speaker 1: What about the.
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  Speaker 2: Staff They looked closely. There was a long serving cleaning
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  Speaker 2: woman thirty years with the family, though recently she'd been
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  Speaker 2: sending her daughter instead because she was ill. And the
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: regular Sudanese watchman who came in twice a day for
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: water and garden work.
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  Speaker 1: Any leads, there.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing concrete, No evidence tied any of them directly to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the crime. The case just stalled.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Completely cold until the digital ghost appeared. The investigation had
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: run out of physical leads, internal conflicts. They needed a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: break from somewhere else, and they.
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  Speaker 2: Got it from one simple, probably careless mistake by the killer.
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  Speaker 1: The stolen phone.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly one week after the murders, one of doctor Magde's
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: stolen mobile phones, which had been silent since the crime,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: had briefly powered on ping Di cell tower.
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  Speaker 1: And the location wasn't cartoon, not even close.
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  Speaker 2: The signal trace led them hundreds of miles away, deep
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  Speaker 2: into Alden State.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's a huge distance. Suggests flight or maybe passing
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the phone to an accomplice.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Both possibilities were on the table. Police acted immediately, raided
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: the house where the signal originated, and.
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  Speaker 1: They found the phone.
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  Speaker 2: They found the phone and the people holding it. They
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: were shocked, apparently, but the key thing was through them.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: The police identified the actual killer.
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  Speaker 1: Who is it?
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  Speaker 2: An Ethiopian man named Antonio, a former watchman.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: For the family, a former employee.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, he'd work for them for about six months, but
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  Speaker 2: doctor Magdie had fired him, apparently for poor conduct and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: some minor dishonesty, small thefts.
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  Speaker 1: The person with intimate knowledge of the routines, the layout,
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  Speaker 1: the security weaknesses. It was the disgruntled former staff member.
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  Speaker 1: The puzzle pieces just click, They click right.
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  Speaker 2: Into place, don't they. Antonio confessed, and his confession revealed everything.
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  Speaker 2: After being fired, he didn't just disappear.
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  Speaker 1: He's stayed close right.
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  Speaker 2: There, took a job at a cafe on the same street.
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  Speaker 1: No way.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, it allowed him to maintain constant, undetected surveillance on
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: the family. He knew where they kept valuables, cash, gold,
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  Speaker 2: and crucially, he was waiting, waiting for what the right opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: That brand new unregistered car doctor Magdie bought. That was
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: his signal, That was the trigger to act.
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  Speaker 1: Now, so let's walk through his confession. The timeline explains
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: all his contradictions, the locked door, the different shoeprints, mix
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of brutality and calculation.
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  Speaker 2: It does the planning was incredibly meticulous, he said. He
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: climbed the garden fence at that known blind spot. Then
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: he hid for three hours, just waited three hours, patients,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the patience of a predator, waited for doctor Maggie to
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: get home. When the doctor arrived, Antonio attacked him from behind,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: knocked him out, quickly bound him in that service room.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so initial attack was incapacitation, not im medium murder exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Then he took doctor Maggie's keys from his pocket, went
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: upstairs into a Mall's apartment. He was searching for the
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: car keys, the goal, the cash.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And that's when the mother encountered him.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, im Al must have heard the noise, probably thought
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it was her son coming in. She came out of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: her apartment, and Antonio reacted instantly smothered her purely to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: silence her, making.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Sure there were no witnesses. No alarms. Explains the different cause.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Of death recisely, swift, silent.
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  Speaker 1: And the ten minute gap the return to doctor Magdie.
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  Speaker 2: While he was looting upstairs, Antonio said he looked out
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the window. He saw doctor Maggie downstairs, stirring, struggling against
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the bindings.
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  Speaker 1: Realized he wasn't fully incapacitated.
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  Speaker 2: Realized the risk, so we rushed back down immediately struck
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: him again repeatedly, this time with the weapon, until he
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: was absolutely certain he was dead. Then dragged the body
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: back into the service room.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And the multiple shoe prints.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: That wasn't a team, that was Antonio. He apparently changed
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: shoes at some point during the crime, probably during a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: cleanup phase, leaving prints from different pairs.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. And the escape, How did he
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: get away with that unregistered car? That seems like the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: biggest hurdle.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: This part shows incredible calculated thinking, leveraging the local political situation.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: He spent over an hour looting after both were dead,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: took the keys, locked everything up carefully behind him, making
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it look secure.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Pop the mother's door from the outside.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Yes. Then he drove away in the new car. Now
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: to get past checkpoints without being stopped in an unregistered vehicle?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: What did he do?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: He placed counterfeit metal plates on the car, plates labeled.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: TMA's tazuj What is that sigma sign?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: For those unfamiliar, Tmazga indicated an affiliation with the Third
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Revolutionary Front forces. These were armed groups who were signatories
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: to recent peace accords in Sudan.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: So essentially he put fake official business plates on the car.
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  Speaker 2: Pretty much, he gave him a kind of tacit immunity.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Security at checkpoints would likely wave through a vehicle marked
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: like that, assuming it belonged to those forces. No questions
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: asked about registration.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Allowing him to drive the stolen car clear out of
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Khartoum undetected flawlessly.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: The entire plan, from surveillance to execution to escape was meticulous,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: oh undone only by that one tiny post crime.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Error, his cousin turning on the phone and alda.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: In giving away their location, just like that.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: What really stands out here listening to the confession and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the background is the shock in the community. Afterwards. People
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: confirmed the family had treated Antonio well, even gave him money.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: He's fired, yes, but for these relatively minor thefts, this
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: dishonesty which the family chose not to report to the police.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And that's the terrible irony, isn't it? The entire tragedy,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: this horrific double murder, was quite possibly set in motion
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: because a series of smaller offenses were dismissed met with mercy.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Perhaps instead of being formally reported.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Right and because of that, this individual, who clearly had
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: dangerous potential, was allowed to remain close, maintain surveillance, keep
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that intimate knowledge of their lives, and ultimately use it
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: against them.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And the final chapter is still unwritten. The legal consequence.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Because doctor Magdie's siblings, the direct family, live abroad, the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: trial is awaiting their input.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes, Sudanese law in cases like this gives the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: victim's family a significant choice. It puts the burden in
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: many ways on them.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: What are the options.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: They can choose a pardon, or they can accept blood money,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: which is called fidya that's a negotiated compensation paid by
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: the killer's side to the victim's family. Or they can
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: demand cases retribution, which in this context usually means execution.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: The law basically forces the family to decide between forgiveness, compensation,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: or the ultimate accountability.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It leaves us with a really profound question to think about.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Doesn't it about that initial act of mercy or dismissal
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the earlier dishonesty. When that mercy allows someone to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: remain positioned to commit far greater violence, Where does the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: balance of responsibility really lie. It's something the family and
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the court have to grapple with now a chilling end
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to a case built on calculation and betrayal.