I'm Not a Monster

The team get answers. Then Josh tells Debra what they’ve found. Josh and Sara track down a witness who says he knows what happened to Austin Tice. He says people are trying to stop the truth from coming out, but that he has been trying to find Austin for years and knows what really happened. Josh and Sara test his story. As the pieces begin to fit, Josh talks Austin’s mother Debra through their fi...

Josh and Sara hunt the men who know what really happened to Austin. When the Assad regime fell, they went into hiding. As the team close in, competing accounts begin to emerge: stories of detention, secret deals, survival and betrayal. Some may be telling the truth, others may be trying to bury it. Archive: CNN; BBC; NBC; PBS; Al Jazeera. Writer and showrunner: Josh Baker Investigative producer: S...

Josh Baker with an update on the next episode.

When was the last time Austin was seen alive? Josh and Sara find the people who claim to know. Josh meets a man who says he interrogated Austin. Then two more witnesses are found. Each of them helps fill gaps in Austin’s story, and the hidden months of his captivity are revealed. But one question becomes more urgent than any other: when was Austin last seen alive? Writer and showrunner: Josh Baker...

Josh uncovers a hidden world of secret negotiations, backchannels, and high-level talks. And, after years of failed promises, Austin’s mother Debra decides to go to Syria herself - alone. She believes the US government could have done more to get her son home. Josh finds the men who took part in covert talks between Washington and Damascus. Could Austin’s release have been possible? And what was S...

A video appears online titled: “Austin Tice Still Alive”. It shows Austin bound, blindfolded and terrified, surrounded by armed men. But as Josh and Sara dig deeper, the story begins to change. They uncover a trail that leads to the door of the most powerful man in Syria. Austin’s case is like no other. Archive: CBS; NPR; CNN; khalidfree75; Al Jazeera; BBC; ABC; Middle East Eye. Writer and showrun...

Josh and Sara piece together Austin’s final route into Damascus. They find the farm where he celebrated his 31st birthday - the last place his mother spoke to him. Then comes an unprecedented discovery. For years, the story was that Austin was taken at a checkpoint. But what Josh and Sara uncover suggests something far more deliberate. And at the centre of Austin’s disappearance is one man. Archiv...

The Austin Tice files begin to give up their secrets. Josh and Sara uncover names, locations and new leads about what happened to Austin Tice. But to understand them, they have to go back to the start - to Austin’s own journey through Syria, the rebels he befriended, and the road he took before he vanished. That road leads to a town outside Damascus - and a shocking discovery. Archive: CNN; Sky Ne...

In the chaos after the Syrian regime’s downfall, the hunt for Austin Tice is on. Josh Baker and his fellow investigative journalist Sara Obeidat are in Damascus as bombs fall and gunfights break out. Armed with a list of locations where Austin may have been held, they race across the Syrian capital searching for any sign of him. They find horrifying evidence of detention and torture on an industri...

Josh Baker investigates one of the biggest missing-person cases of our time. American journalist Austin Tice vanished in Syria, but the US president says he’s alive. For more than a decade Austin's mother Debra has been leading the search for her son. As Josh Baker and Sara Obeidat travel to Syria to help Austin’s mother’s search, a source gives Josh information that might unlock where he is - and...

Josh Baker enters a dangerous world of fear, greed and betrayal as he sets out to uncover the truth behind one of the biggest missing-person cases of our time - the abduction of American journalist Austin Tice. Archive: NBC; PBS; CNN. Writer and showrunner: Josh Baker Investigative producer: Sara Obeidat Series producer: Simon Maybin Field producing: Ouday Al Hussein Additional producing: Lucy Bur...

Nine years to the day since Shamima Begum entered ISIS controlled Syria, she’ll find out whether she’s any closer to coming back to Britain. Josh is at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London to hear whether Begum’s lawyers have succeeded in arguing that the British government’s decision to take away her citizenship was unlawful. After she emerged from the remnants of the Islamic State group...

Josh answers your questions about Shamima Begum and the making of the multi-award winning series. Recorded in front of an audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London, Naga Munchetty puts your questions to Josh including: what is it about this story that captures the imagination and curiosity of so many people? How did Josh keep safe while making the podcast? And, Should Shamima Begum be seen as...

What do you want to know about The Shamima Begum Story and the making of the podcast? Join us on Tuesday the 12th of September in London, as Josh answers your questions about the series, share more about how it was made and some extra things we’ve learnt about the story. Apply for FREE TICKETS: https://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/shamima-begum Email your questions: josh@bbc.co.uk

What happened to the girl Shamima Begum says convinced her to join the Islamic State group? Less than 24 hours before this episode was published ,we got the answer. Reporter: Josh Baker Written and produced by: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Composer: Firas Abou Fakher Theme music: Sam Slater Mix and sound design: Tom Brignell Production coordinators: Janet Staples and Helena Warwick-Cross...

No longer a vulnerable schoolgirl, but a seemingly unrepentant adult. Shamima Begum enrages the British public and ends up stuck in Syria. A series of media interviews come to shape how she’s perceived - with long lasting consequences. Reporter: Josh Baker Written and produced by: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Composer: Firas Abou Fakher Theme music: Sam Slater Mix and sound design: Tom Br...

Raqqa falls, the so-called caliphate crumbles and a pregnant Shamima Begum is desperate to come home. After she and her husband Yago walk out of the ashes of the Islamic State group, she’s discovered in a detention camp where she gives an interview that will change her life. Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Composer: Firas Ab...

Someone close to Shamima Begum is looking for a way out of the so-called caliphate. Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Composer: Firas Abou Fakher Theme music: Sam Slater Mix and sound design: Tom Brignell Production coordinator: Janet Staples Series Editor: Jonathan Aspinwall Head of Long Form Audio: Emma Rippon Commissioning...

With her new husband in prison, Shamima Begum is left in the care of a stranger, but who is he? Josh travels to the heart of the former caliphate as he searches for clues and investigates what her life with the Islamic State group was like. Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Composer: Firas Abou Fakher Theme music: Sam Slater M...

Shamima Begum’s new life under ISIS isn’t what she expected. She says what she thought would be paradise is more like a prison. At just 15 years-old she finds herself trapped in an ISIS guesthouse, where the only way out is to get married. In his first interview since 2019, Islamic State group fighter Yago Reidjik reveals how he became her husband and what their life together was like. This episod...

Friendship, propaganda and the promise of paradise - why Shamima Begum left London at 15 for the Islamic State group in war torn Syria. But how did she ignore the group’s brutal violence? And who convinced her to go? The feature length documentary, "The Shamima Begum Story", will be on BBC2 at 9pm on February 7th. Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara...

The man who smuggled Shamima Begum to Syria claims he was spying for Canada. What's the truth? And could she and her school friends have been stopped from reaching the Islamic State group? Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Field producers: Hussam Hammoud Composer: Firas Abou Fakher Theme music: Sam Slater and Gunni Tynes Mix a...

Following Shamima Begum’s route reveals a dangerous Islamic State group smuggling network, but that’s not all. A local taxi firm isn’t what it seems and a gangster threatens to make Josh “disappear.” It all ends in an underground carpark with a stack of secret documents and a warning. Reporter: Josh Baker Written by: Josh Baker and Joe Kent Producers: Josh Baker, Sara Obeidat and Joe Kent Field pr...

Three London schoolgirls disappear, heading for a war zone. Four years later only one emerges from the ashes of ISIS. Nobody knows what really happened to her. Josh Baker meets Shamima Begum in Syria to begin unpicking her story. Almost eight years earlier, he was filming in Shamima’s local mosque when news broke that she and her friends had gone missing, it made global headlines. He was there whe...

Investigating the story of Shamima Begum. At 15, she ran away from her London home with two school friends to join the terror group ISIS in war torn Syria. Now she wants to come back. It’s a tale that has gripped the world, but there are different ways to tell it. Josh Baker has been following the story since 2015 when Shamima Begum left for the Islamic State group. For Series 2 of I’m Not a Monst...