Revisited: searching for the shadow man (part 2) – podcast

This week we are revisiting some of our favourite episodes from the year so far. This episode was first broadcast on 28 April.

It took many hours of painstaking sleuthing but, at last, working with Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Syrian researcher Annsar Shahhoud found the man she was looking for. His name was Amjad Youssuf – and he was a Syrian commander seen on video leading the shocking executions of civilians in 2013, published for the first time by the Guardian in April.

In the second of a two-part series, Annsar tells Michael Safi how she created an online persona – a woman called ‘Anna Sh’ – on Facebook, and slowly convinced Amjad to befriend Anna. Over the course of many conversations, Anna won Amjad’s trust and, eventually, he confessed to being the man in the video.

Annsar’s techniques, the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, says, had all the stealth and sophistication of an intelligence agency operation. But playing the part of Anna began to take its toll. She reflects on when she knew it was time to put an end to the character and what she learned from her conversations with Amjad.

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