ASSASSINS

Each week on If You're Listening, host Matt Bevan explains the biggest story in world news while hiding in his basement from assassins (not us!) and authoritarian regimes. In this episode, Matt brings you the story of the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. In the early hours of July 31 this year, Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran. It's presumed Israel was behind the...

Hosted by Marc Fennell, No One Saw It Coming is a podcast that focuses on moments in history that seemed inconsequential but turned out to be momentous. And in the episode that we're bringing you today, one of the most infamous assassinations of all time — that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It's the event that's seen as the trigger for World War One, but it didn't happen quite the way the history b...

Editor's note (22/12/2025): In this episode, we discuss how, under Gandhi's leadership, the spinning wheel became a symbol of rebellion in India. We then say, "Which is why, to this day, that wheel appears on the Indian flag." This is incorrect. Although it is true that the spinning wheel featured on an earlier version of the Indian flag, in 1947 it was replaced by the Ashoka Chakra. Mahatma Gandh...

In 2020, Iran's top nuclear scientist, Professor Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was gunned down on a remote stretch of road outside Tehran. But as the dust settled, one thing stood out as being particularly strange. Apart from the victim, his wife, and their security detail, there was no one else around. No assailants, no witnesses, and no collateral damage. Israel was the prime suspect. Had they just enacte...

July 2024. Donald Trump is speaking at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania when his speech is interrupted by a volley of gunshots. Trump instinctively touches his right ear and drops to the ground where he's swarmed by his security detail — who quickly move to get him out of the firing line. Surrounded by security, blood streaming down the right side of his face, Trump raises a fist to the c...

As the longest serving Prime Minister in Japan's history, Shinzo Abe deserved a relaxing retirement. Instead, he was out on the campaign trail for a colleague when an assassin's bullet struck. But this wasn't a politically motivated kill. It was actually connected to a global cult-like religion. And a young man whose mother was in too deep. Host: Aslan Pahari Producer: Hannah Jose Audio Engineer:...

Tupac Shakur was a poet. A performer. A radical. He might have only been alive for 25 years, but in that time, he became the voice of his generation. And then one night, after a fight in Las Vegas, he was shot four times and left for dead. This is his story. How he lived. How he fought. And how, nearly three decades later, his murder is still being untangled and interrogated. Host: Aslan Pahari Pr...

You'd never expect to see an assassination broadcast on live TV. But that's exactly what happened in 2023. In the badlands of India's most populous state, a gangster-turned-politician met his end while millions watched. So what did the notorious Atiq Ahmed do to get himself publicly executed? How did his assassins get through a police escort to reach him? And who was powerful enough to give the or...

For over 3000 years, the death of Pharaoh Ramses III was one of history's great mysteries. Then, in 2012, scientists cracked the case, revealing that Ramses III, the last of Egypt's Great Pharaohs, had been assassinated. But how did they do it? Science journalist Maddie Massy joins Aslan Pahari to dig deep into this discovery, and how scientists use cutting edge technology to reveal secrets from t...

Is Ancient Egypt's 3000-year-old murder mystery history's coldest case? Ramses III was the last of Egypt's Great Pharaohs; a saviour of the empire, a military genius, a god-king. But for over 3000 years, his death remained a mystery. Then, in 2012, scientists uncovered the truth. They found a wound nobody had noticed before — the type of wound that could only have one explanation: Pharaoh Ramses I...

How long do you remain conscious for after having your head chopped off? For centuries, people thought that a severed head might be aware of what's going on for up to 30 seconds after decapitation — or even longer! That folklore has its origins in the assassination of revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, the French Revolution's "Angel of Assassination". You might know that in...

How do you assassinate someone when you don't know what they look like? The K-Pop Demon Hunter of her time, Korea's first empress, Queen Min, was a total bad ass. But there weren't any reliable images of her, so no one beyond her immediate court knew what she looked like. Which turned out to be a problem when samurai assassins, part of a rabble-rousing mob, stormed her palace early one morning wit...

Almost two decades after her assassination we still don't know who killed Benazir Bhutto. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of theories about who had the means and the motive. As the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, Bhutto went toe-to-toe with the totalitarian forces that killed her father and controlled her country. To her supporters, she represented their great ho...

There have been few assassinations as notorious or consequential as Abraham Lincoln's. But for years before he killed the President, Lincoln’s assassin was a household name across North America. In fact, stage actor John Wilkes Booth was so famous that many people had images of him hung on the walls of their homes. So how does an American celebrity kill an American President in front of hundreds o...

Aslan Pahari brings you stories of the world's most shocking assassinations. From seizing power, to silencing dissidents, ASSASSINS unpacks the moments in which someone decides that murder is the move. Every episode will be available as audio and video, just search for ASSASSINS with Aslan Pahari on the ABC listen app, ABC iview or wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more stories of...