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The Cleaver Man Who Butchered Baghdad · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture the scene. It is It's Bagdad nineteen seventy three.
0:03
Speaker 1: The thick, suffocating heat of a Middle Eastern summer is
0:06
Speaker 1: just settled over the city. But absolutely no one is sleeping,
0:10
Speaker 1: no one. If you were to walk outside, the streets
0:13
Speaker 1: are entirely empty, just dead. The eerie, heavy silence of
0:17
Speaker 1: the night is broken only by the distant echoing bark
0:21
Speaker 1: of a stray dog. Inside the houses, the lights are off,
0:25
Speaker 1: but the families are wide awake, fathers, brothers, sons. They're
0:28
Speaker 1: sitting perfectly still at their front doors, and they're gripping
0:31
Speaker 1: hunting rifles, iron pipes, honestly anything heavy they could find,
0:34
Speaker 1: just waiting. Right. They are guarding their own homes in
0:37
Speaker 1: the dead of night, staring into the pitch black, staring
0:41
Speaker 1: and waiting. They are paralyzed by the invisible fear of
0:44
Speaker 1: a single, unknown shadow, a phantom armed with a heavy
0:47
Speaker 1: metallic cleaver. It's terrified, the monster who leaves no trace,
0:51
Speaker 1: no survivors, and absolutely no mercy. Welcome to the deep
0:56
Speaker 1: dive Today. You and I are going to step into
0:58
Speaker 1: the darkest corners of a metropolis held hostage. We are
1:02
Speaker 1: tracking Hatim Kadim, known to history and to the nightmares
1:06
Speaker 1: of millions as Abudhabar the cleaverman.
1:10
Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this, because to understand the sheer scale
1:13
Speaker 2: of the terror he inflicted, we really have to travel
1:16
Speaker 2: back and trace the very making of a monster exactly.
1:18
Speaker 1: And the mission of this deep dive isn't just to
1:20
Speaker 1: recount a series of gruesome events, right, We're here to
1:24
Speaker 1: examine the terrifying evolution of a criminal mind. We're going
1:27
Speaker 1: to deconstruct how an unprecedented, highly organized syndicate managed to
1:31
Speaker 1: completely blindside one of the most heavily policed cities in
1:34
Speaker 1: the region.
1:34
Speaker 3: And they were heavily police, oh heavily.
1:36
Speaker 1: This is a study in psychological manipulation, supreme arrogance, and
1:40
Speaker 1: the chilling reality of what happens when pure evil operates
1:43
Speaker 1: under the guise of ordinary family life.
1:45
Speaker 2: So to find the roots of this nightmare, we need
1:47
Speaker 2: to rewind the clock back to nineteen fifty one. Hatem
1:50
Speaker 2: Kadim graduates and steps into the ranks of the Iraqi
1:53
Speaker 2: Police Force.
1:54
Speaker 1: On paper, he's a young, capable officer serving his country,
1:59
Speaker 1: but the uniform does fit not his body, but his mind.
2:02
Speaker 1: Almost immediately his colleagues start to notice the cracks right.
2:06
Speaker 2: They notice these strange, erratic behaviors, just like a deeply
2:10
Speaker 2: ingrained lack of a moral compass, and within a very
2:14
Speaker 2: short time, he is unceremoniously dismissed from the police force.
2:17
Speaker 1: They just cut him loose.
2:18
Speaker 2: They saw something deeply unsettling in him. But instead of
2:21
Speaker 2: you know, fading away or correcting his behavior, he pivots.
2:25
Speaker 2: He enrolls in the Air Force college. And this is
2:28
Speaker 2: where his psychological profile really comes into focus, because.
2:30
Speaker 1: He doesn't just wash out of the air Force. He
2:33
Speaker 1: orchestrates this massive, reckless stunt that gives us our first
2:37
Speaker 1: real glimpse into his staggering grandiosity.
2:40
Speaker 3: It is a.
2:41
Speaker 2: Phenomenal detail, and it tells you everything you need to
2:43
Speaker 2: know about his narcissism. While in flight training with access
2:46
Speaker 2: to actual military aircraft, he decides the rules simply do
2:50
Speaker 2: not apply to him. He steals a plane.
2:52
Speaker 1: Wait, he doesn't just borrow a jeep. He steals an
2:55
Speaker 1: actual military aircraft.
2:56
Speaker 2: An actual aircraft. Yeah, and he doesn't just take it
2:59
Speaker 2: for a joy ride into the clouds. He specifically hijacks
3:03
Speaker 2: his training flight, diverting from the approved airspace to fly
3:07
Speaker 2: low and loud, directly.
3:09
Speaker 3: Over his girlfriend's house.
3:10
Speaker 2: My god, it was a massive, incredibly dangerous stunt, purely
3:15
Speaker 2: for his own ego, to prove he could to force
3:18
Speaker 2: her to look up and know he was the one
3:20
Speaker 2: roaring above her in total control.
3:22
Speaker 3: Naturally, the Air force commanders were horrified.
3:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be too right.
3:26
Speaker 2: They immediately recognized a profound psychological instability. They saw a
3:31
Speaker 2: man who lacked impulse control, who craved absolute dominance, and
3:35
Speaker 2: who possessed a terrifying disregard for consequences. So they expelled him.
3:40
Speaker 2: They deemed him mentally and psychologically unfit to pilot and aircraft.
3:44
Speaker 1: So he's fired from the police, fired from the Air Force.
3:46
Speaker 1: You'd think he would hit rock bottom, maybe rethink his
3:48
Speaker 1: life choices, but men like hate him. They don't reflect, They.
3:51
Speaker 3: Just move exactly, They adapt.
3:53
Speaker 1: He drist to Kuwait lands a job, and within a
3:55
Speaker 1: single year he's fired again for immoral conduct. So he
3:59
Speaker 1: drifts back to it, and this time he somehow charms
4:02
Speaker 1: his way into a highly respectable position in Kirkuk working
4:05
Speaker 1: as a financial accountant for the AUQUAF department.
4:07
Speaker 2: And for context here, the AQUAF manages state and religious
4:10
Speaker 2: endowments it's a position of significant financial.
4:13
Speaker 1: Trust which he immediately exploits. It takes him no time
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Speaker 1: at all to start embezzling the funds, but the law
4:19
Speaker 1: finally catches up to him. He is sentenced to two
4:22
Speaker 1: and a half years in a cramped, unforgiving prison.
4:25
Speaker 2: Cell, two and a half years to sit in the
4:27
Speaker 2: dark and think right.
4:29
Speaker 1: And when he gets out, he doesn't seek redemption. He
4:31
Speaker 1: seeks a bigger stage. He leads the Middle East entirely.
4:35
Speaker 2: He escapes to Europe, and this European chapter is crucial.
4:39
Speaker 2: This is where the erratic, impulsive street thug transforms into
4:42
Speaker 2: a highly sophisticated apex predator. He doesn't just wander, he absorbs.
4:47
Speaker 2: He moves rapidly through Austria, Belgium, Greece, France, and finally settles.
4:52
Speaker 1: In Germany, just bouncing from country to country exactly.
4:55
Speaker 2: And along the way he absorbs languages like a sponge.
4:58
Speaker 2: He becomes fluent in Air Arabic, English, French and German.
5:02
Speaker 1: It's like linguistic camouflage.
5:04
Speaker 2: Precisely, and that camouflage allows him to seamlessly integrate into
5:08
Speaker 2: the European underworld. He isn't breaking into houses or embezzling
5:11
Speaker 2: from local offices anymore, he is networking with top tiered
5:15
Speaker 2: German organized crime syndicates. He graduates into high states smuggling,
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Speaker 2: moving stolen cars and illegal weapons across international borders.
5:23
Speaker 1: I see where this is going.
5:24
Speaker 2: He's learning logistics, yes, he is learning the art of
5:27
Speaker 2: the invisible network. How do you move large, highly illegal
5:31
Speaker 2: items without drawing attention? How do you manage a supply
5:34
Speaker 2: chain of illicit goods? He eventually slips up, getting slapped
5:37
Speaker 2: with a ten month prison stint in Europe for fraud
5:40
Speaker 2: and smuggling, But the education is complete.
5:43
Speaker 1: You really have to look at this resume. He's been police,
5:46
Speaker 1: he's been military. He's a multi lingual international smuggler who
5:50
Speaker 1: knows how European crime syndicates operate. He is gathering all
5:53
Speaker 1: the dark skills he needs. So he's built this resume,
5:55
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy, with his terrifying arsenal experience, he
6:00
Speaker 1: hacks his bags and returns to Baghdad.
6:02
Speaker 3: He comes home.
6:03
Speaker 1: What is his first move? Does he recruit local thugs?
6:06
Speaker 2: That's exactly what the police assumed later on, But no,
6:09
Speaker 2: when he returns, he goes completely dark for three entire years.
6:13
Speaker 3: Hatim Kadnim is.
6:15
Speaker 2: A ghost in Baghdad three years, three years, but he
6:18
Speaker 2: isn't resting. He is building. He realizes that street thugs
6:22
Speaker 2: can be bought, bribed, or interrogated, so he constructs an
6:26
Speaker 2: air tight, highly secretive crime syndicate out of the one
6:29
Speaker 2: thing you can't easily break blood.
6:31
Speaker 1: He recruits his entire inner circle from his own dinner table.
6:34
Speaker 3: He does.
6:35
Speaker 2: He recruits his brothers, Hasim and Caleb. He brings in
6:38
Speaker 2: his sister and most shockingly, his own mother.
6:41
Speaker 1: Ahem, wait, his mother. He brought his own mother into
6:45
Speaker 1: a murder syndicate. How does his son even initiate that conversation?
6:49
Speaker 1: It chills me to the bone.
6:50
Speaker 2: It speaks to the absolute cult light control he exerted
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Speaker 2: over his family. He also recruits his young nephew, Hussein,
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Speaker 2: shaping the boy into his vicious right hand man, the
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Speaker 2: one who will stand shoulder to shoulder with him in
7:02
Speaker 2: the bloodiest moments. And then there is his wife, Sijita,
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Speaker 2: the inside woman.
7:07
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Sigita because her role is terrifyingly brilliant.
7:11
Speaker 1: What did she actually do?
7:12
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the sheer psychological manipulation used to
7:16
Speaker 2: infiltrate the targets. Let's break down their methodology. It was
7:21
Speaker 2: a masterpiece of lethal efficiency. It started with Sigita. They
7:25
Speaker 2: would select a target, usually an affluent home in a
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Speaker 2: wealthy Bagdad neighborhood. Okay, now you have to understand the
7:32
Speaker 2: socioeconomic environment of nineteen seventies Baghdad. There was a booming
7:37
Speaker 2: middle and upper class and it was entirely normal for
7:40
Speaker 2: these families to hire domestic help off the street. A humble,
7:44
Speaker 2: hard working woman knocking on the gate asking to clean
7:46
Speaker 2: floors wouldn't trigger any alongs whatsoever.
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Speaker 1: So Sigita knocks on the door, presents herself as a
7:51
Speaker 1: maid looking for work, and they.
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Speaker 2: Just let her in exactly, and once inside, she became
7:56
Speaker 2: a human surveillance camera. She mapped the layout of the house.
7:59
Speaker 2: She memorized the daily routines of the family. She noted
8:02
Speaker 2: exactly where the valuables were hidden, the schedules of the guards,
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Speaker 2: the sleeping habits of the children. She gathered the intelligence
8:08
Speaker 2: and she handed it directly to Htam.
8:10
Speaker 1: Once the blueprint was set, Hadham and his nephew Hussain
8:13
Speaker 1: would move in and the rule how him established was absolute.
8:17
Speaker 1: It was terrifying in its cold logic. Leave zero witnesses.
8:21
Speaker 1: It didn't matter if it was a man, a woman,
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Speaker 1: or a child. If you were inside the house, you
8:25
Speaker 1: were going to die. He wanted no one left to
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Speaker 1: describe his face, his height, or his voice.
8:30
Speaker 2: And this is where his European logistics training really comes
8:33
Speaker 2: into play. Think about the difficulty of fencing stolen goods
8:36
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy three. If you just murdered a family,
8:39
Speaker 2: you can't exactly walk down a well lit Baghdad street
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Speaker 2: at two am carrying a heavy television set or a.
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Speaker 3: Box of silverware.
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Speaker 1: It screams robbery.
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Speaker 2: It invites police stops immediately.
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Speaker 1: Right, So how do they get the loot out?
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Speaker 2: After the massacre? While the bodies were still warm, the
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Speaker 2: rest of the family would spring into action. They would
8:56
Speaker 2: systematically loop the house. They packed the stolen television, the jewelry,
9:00
Speaker 2: the cash directly into the murdered victim's own car.
9:04
Speaker 1: That is sickeningly clever.
9:06
Speaker 2: It was the ultimate cloak of invisibility. They drove out
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Speaker 2: of the driveway and through the streets of Baghdad and
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Speaker 2: plain sight, no police officer or neighbor is going to question.
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Speaker 2: A family driving their own familiar sedan out of their
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Speaker 2: own neighborhood. They would unload the goods, abandon the vehicle
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Speaker 2: miles away, and just vanish.
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Speaker 1: It was a perfect closed loop system. The extended family,
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Speaker 1: the brothers, the mother. Their job was to fence the
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Speaker 1: stolen goods, to wash the blood money and turn it
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Speaker 1: into usable cash. There were no outsiders to leak information,
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Speaker 1: no loose hands, only the silence of the grave and
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Speaker 1: the impenetrable loyalty of blood. The machine is built, it
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Speaker 1: is tested, and in nineteen seventy three, Abu Tabar unleashes
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Speaker 1: it on Baghdad.
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Speaker 2: The first strike happens against a Jewish man living alone.
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Speaker 2: Abu Tabar slips into the house. In his hand is
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Speaker 2: the weapon that will give him his monstrous nickname, the Tabar.
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Speaker 2: A heavy, brutal, butcher's.
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Speaker 1: Cleaver, crushing strike to the skull. The man is dead instantly.
10:03
Speaker 1: They tear the house apart, but they find almost nothing
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Speaker 1: of value. It's a botched robbery, but for hot Tam,
10:08
Speaker 1: the taste for blood is established, the thrill of the
10:10
Speaker 1: ultimate control. The beast is awake.
10:12
Speaker 2: This initial murder sets a terrifying precedent. The police find
10:15
Speaker 2: the victim with his skull came in by a heavy blade.
10:18
Speaker 2: Then another victim is found with the exact same horrific injury,
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Speaker 2: and another A pattern emerges that is so barbaric, so
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Speaker 2: distinctive that whispers begin to spread through the markets and cafes.
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Speaker 2: They begin calling this phantom Abu Tabar the Cleaverman. Panic
10:34
Speaker 2: begins to seat itself in the psyche of the city.
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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and deeply disturbing. Late
10:40
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, he elevates his violence from mere robbery
10:44
Speaker 1: to a masterpiece of psychological horror. He sets his sights
10:47
Speaker 1: on a high profile target, police Brigadier Bashir Ahmed al Salman.
10:51
Speaker 3: A major escalation huge.
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Speaker 1: This isn't a random merchant, this is a senior law
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Speaker 1: enforcement officer. Hot m and his nephew arrive at the house,
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Speaker 1: but the family.
10:58
Speaker 3: Isn't asleep yet, so Hattem waits.
11:00
Speaker 1: He crouches in the suffocating shadows outside the home for
11:03
Speaker 1: over eleven agonizing hours, hour after hour, watching the lights,
11:08
Speaker 1: listening to the muffled sounds of the family settling in,
11:10
Speaker 1: feeling the chill of the night air creep in think
11:13
Speaker 1: about the sensory deprivation of just wading in the dark,
11:17
Speaker 1: possessing a predatory patience that completely defies reason.
11:20
Speaker 3: It's chilling.
11:21
Speaker 1: Finally, the house goes entirely silent.
11:23
Speaker 2: They breach the home. What follows is a massacre so
11:26
Speaker 2: brutal it would scar the soul of the city forever.
11:29
Speaker 2: Katum and Hussein butcher the entire family in their beds.
11:32
Speaker 2: But Haitem isn't satisfied with simply eliminating witnesses anymore. He
11:36
Speaker 2: wants to leave a message. He wants to orchestrate a
11:38
Speaker 2: tableau of terror.
11:39
Speaker 1: It's just horrific.
11:41
Speaker 2: He drags the heavy, lifeless bodies of the family members
11:44
Speaker 2: one by one into the bathroom. He meticulously stacks them
11:47
Speaker 2: on top of each other inside the bathtub, a gruesome,
11:50
Speaker 2: overflowing monument.
11:51
Speaker 3: To his absolute power.
11:53
Speaker 2: But he leaves the brigadier's wife. He places her body
11:56
Speaker 2: alone on the master bed, and the scene discovered the
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Speaker 2: next morning suggests pekable violations occurred even after her death.
12:02
Speaker 1: When the police arrived at that house, the shockwave hits
12:05
Speaker 1: Bagdad like a bomb. You have to understand the psychological
12:09
Speaker 1: toll this took on a massive bustling metropolis. This was
12:13
Speaker 1: an era before twenty four hour news networks, before the Internet,
12:17
Speaker 1: but terror moves faster than a digital feed. The city
12:21
Speaker 1: completely broke down.
12:22
Speaker 2: Paranoia became the default state of existence.
12:24
Speaker 1: People stopped going out after dark entirely. Multiple dead bolts
12:28
Speaker 1: were installed on every single door. Fathers slept with their
12:31
Speaker 1: fingers on the triggers of their guns. It was so
12:34
Speaker 1: intense that regular everyday thieves in Bagdad entirely stopped stealing.
12:39
Speaker 3: They stayed home.
12:40
Speaker 2: They were absolutely terrified that if they were caught breaking
12:43
Speaker 2: a window, the police or the homeowners would mistake them
12:45
Speaker 2: for Abu Tabar and execute them on the spot without
12:48
Speaker 2: asking questions.
12:49
Speaker 1: And the Iraqi government was paralyzed. They had no physical description,
12:52
Speaker 1: no fingerprints, no leaked informants. The pressure on the police
12:55
Speaker 1: was crushing.
12:56
Speaker 2: In an act of pure desperation, the Iraqi authorities reached
13:00
Speaker 2: out internationally. They brought in elite specialized security and forensic
13:04
Speaker 2: forces from France and the Soviet Union. Top tier investigators
13:08
Speaker 2: walked the blood soaked floors of Baghdad. They analyzed the
13:11
Speaker 2: crime scenes, they interviewed neighbors, and they found absolutely nothing.
13:16
Speaker 2: The phantom remained entirely uncaught. Hatam was outsmarting the combined
13:20
Speaker 2: efforts of three nations.
13:21
Speaker 1: He's the ultimate apex predator at this point. But when
13:24
Speaker 1: a predator faces no resistance when he believes he is
13:27
Speaker 1: a ghost, he gets sloppy.
13:29
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we see
13:31
Speaker 2: a classic psychological trap. Hubris hat M began to believe
13:34
Speaker 2: his own myth. He believed he was invincible. This arrogance
13:38
Speaker 2: led him to make a deeply flawed decision. He chose
13:40
Speaker 2: to target a mere two hundred meters away from the
13:42
Speaker 2: Republican Palace.
13:43
Speaker 1: The Republican Palace. To emphasize what that means, this isn't
13:47
Speaker 1: just a gated community, This is nineteen seventies bathis de rack.
13:50
Speaker 1: The Republican Palace is the terrifying, heavily armed epicenter of
13:54
Speaker 1: the state's power. It is the absolute most secure military
13:58
Speaker 1: patrol zone in the end entire country. Striking two hundred
14:02
Speaker 1: meters from it isn't just risky, is practically a suicide mission.
14:06
Speaker 2: The audacity is staggering. To strike in the shadow of
14:10
Speaker 2: the state's ultimate seat of power proves his ego had
14:13
Speaker 2: completely overtaken his logic. He infiltrates the house. He slaughters
14:17
Speaker 2: the family with a signature cleaver. He confronts the maid,
14:20
Speaker 2: he brings the heavy blade down upon her head. She
14:22
Speaker 2: collapses in a pool of blood. Hotam loots the house,
14:25
Speaker 2: packs the car and drives away, believing he has once
14:28
Speaker 2: again left a house of perfect silence. But he made
14:30
Speaker 2: a fatal miscalculation.
14:32
Speaker 1: He didn't check for a pulse. He didn't the maid,
14:34
Speaker 1: miraculous Lea, survives. The blow fractured her skull. It nearly
14:38
Speaker 1: ended our life, but she clung to it. She is
14:40
Speaker 1: rushed to the hospital, hovering on the brink of death
14:43
Speaker 1: for an agonizingly long time, but slowly she begins to
14:47
Speaker 1: wake up, and when she opens her eyes, the police
14:50
Speaker 1: are waiting, and for the very first time in years
14:53
Speaker 1: of slaughter, they have a face, They have a build,
14:55
Speaker 1: they have a physical description. The phantom is suddenly a man.
14:59
Speaker 2: But Abuta car doesn't know this. He has no idea.
15:02
Speaker 2: The walls are closing in. His arrogance pushes him to
15:05
Speaker 2: keep going, which brings us to the final night. Mid
15:08
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four. Hatem selects his next target, the luxurious
15:12
Speaker 2: home of a prominent Iraqi doctor, he's done a surveillance.
15:16
Speaker 2: He knows the doctor's traveling out of the country. He
15:18
Speaker 2: believes the house is entirely empty, a simple, quiet burglary.
15:22
Speaker 1: He slips through the shadows, approaches the perimeter, and breaches
15:25
Speaker 1: the house.
15:26
Speaker 2: The silence is absolute. He thinks he is alone. He
15:28
Speaker 2: doesn't know there is a private bodyguard inside.
15:31
Speaker 1: The tension in that house must have been suffocating. Hatim
15:34
Speaker 1: creeping through the dark hallways, silently opening doors, and then
15:37
Speaker 1: a floorboard creaks. A shadow shifts where it shouldn't. The
15:40
Speaker 1: bodyguard is awake. He sees the silhouette of a man
15:44
Speaker 1: holding a heavy blade. Now the bodyguard doesn't try to fight.
15:47
Speaker 1: He knows exactly who is standing in the dark. He
15:50
Speaker 1: lunges toward an open window and unleashes a sudden, piercing
15:54
Speaker 1: shout into the dead of night. He screams for the neighbors.
15:57
Speaker 1: He screams for the police. The silent night shatters.
16:01
Speaker 2: The reaction is instantaneous. The terrified neighbors, who have been
16:05
Speaker 2: sleeping with one eye open for over a year, immediately
16:08
Speaker 2: flood the phone lines. The police, already on high alert
16:12
Speaker 2: and armed with the new description, swarm the neighborhood. Sirens
16:16
Speaker 2: wail in the distance, growing louder by the second. The
16:18
Speaker 2: flashing red and blue lights paint the walls of the
16:21
Speaker 2: doctor's house.
16:22
Speaker 1: The perimeters locked down. There is no stolen car to
16:24
Speaker 1: casually drive away in this time.
16:26
Speaker 2: There is nowhere to hide. The house is breached by
16:28
Speaker 2: armed officers hunting. Katim is surrounded. The clever man is captured.
16:32
Speaker 1: You can almost feel the collective exhale of the entire city.
16:36
Speaker 1: But the capture isn't the end of the story. We
16:38
Speaker 1: move to the stark, fluorescent lights of the interrogation room.
16:41
Speaker 1: A boots bar sits across from the detectives, and he's
16:44
Speaker 1: perfectly calm. He denies everything, He smiles. He tells them
16:47
Speaker 1: they have the wrong man.
16:48
Speaker 2: He believes his family will cover his tracks. He believes
16:51
Speaker 2: he has outsmarted the police, the French, the Soviets.
16:54
Speaker 3: Everyone.
16:55
Speaker 2: He is holding the line. He is relying on the
16:57
Speaker 2: fact that he has never left a witness. He is
16:59
Speaker 2: entirely confident in his own twisted perfection.
17:02
Speaker 1: Until the heavy metal door of the interrogation room clicks open.
17:06
Speaker 1: The pacing slows down, the room goes quiet. The police
17:09
Speaker 1: escort a woman into the room. It's the maid, the
17:12
Speaker 1: one from the house near the Republican Palace, the one
17:14
Speaker 1: he thought he had killed. She steps into the light.
17:17
Speaker 1: She looks across the table, and she locks eyes with
17:20
Speaker 1: the monster who split her head open.
17:22
Speaker 3: It is a cinematic collapse.
17:24
Speaker 2: You can imagine the exact moment the arrogance drains from
17:27
Speaker 2: Haddam's face, the realization that his perfect system failed. He
17:31
Speaker 2: looks at her and he knows it is over. The
17:33
Speaker 2: psychological dam breaks.
17:35
Speaker 1: The confessions begin to spill out the details of the murders,
17:38
Speaker 1: the eleven hour waits, the stolen goods, and the most
17:41
Speaker 1: shocking revelation of all to the police, the implication of
17:44
Speaker 1: his entire family.
17:45
Speaker 2: The trial that followed was a spectacle, a highly publicized
17:49
Speaker 2: open trial in front of the people of Baghdad. The
17:52
Speaker 2: citizens who had cowered in the dark finally got to
17:54
Speaker 2: see the face of their nightmare.
17:56
Speaker 1: And he did look like a demon. He looked like
17:57
Speaker 1: an ordinary man. The gavel falls, the sentence is death,
18:02
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy six, Hattam Cuttam is executed. The
18:06
Speaker 1: shadow is finally a race from the streets of Baghdad.
18:08
Speaker 1: The nightmare dissipates.
18:10
Speaker 2: It brings closure, but it leaves behind a heavy, lingering residue,
18:14
Speaker 2: a city forever changed by the knowledge of what can
18:16
Speaker 2: hide behind a polite smile, a sharp mind, and a
18:19
Speaker 2: closed front door.
18:20
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? When you look back
18:23
Speaker 1: at the terrifying reality of Abu Tabar, you see the
18:26
Speaker 1: perfect catastrophic collision of high intelligence, an absolute void of
18:30
Speaker 1: human empathy, and blind family loyalty. He was a master
18:34
Speaker 1: manipulator who weaponized his own blood, which leaves us with
18:37
Speaker 1: a provocative, deeply unsettling thought to take with you today.
18:41
Speaker 1: Think about Sijita mapping out those homes, Think about his
18:44
Speaker 1: mother washing the blood money. What if Sajita had simply
18:47
Speaker 1: refused to play the trojan horse. What if his brothers
18:50
Speaker 1: had looked at the stolen televisions covered in blood and said, no,
18:53
Speaker 1: Hatem was the one swinging the cleaver. But his reign
18:56
Speaker 1: of terror was sustained by the silent act of complicity
18:59
Speaker 1: of his family. It forces you to wonder, as you
19:02
Speaker 1: go about your day, how much profound, devastating evil in
19:05
Speaker 1: this world relies entirely on the quiet, daily cooperation of
19:08
Speaker 1: the people sitting right across from us at the dinner table,