Original subtitles

THIS SERIES CONTAINS ORIGINAL MATERIALS: VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IMAGES,

VOICE MESSAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND VIDEOS FOUND ON SAMAN ABBAS'S PHONE.

HER VOICE IS ALSO STORED THERE.

Fra, I don't...

I don't want to stay with my parents.

I just want to go and get all of my documents, that's it.

I'm going somewhere else.

I don't want to... go home, do you understand?

- It's Saman Abbas. - Saman Abbas.

Saman Abbas.

The eighteen year old Pakistani girl who disappeared

in the Reggio Emilia area.

She may have left voluntarily, but she also may not have.

Hours of anguish in Novellara, near Reggio Emilia,

over Saman's disappearance.

Saman, for the love of Allah, my daughter,

let me hear your voice.

Saman Abbas had opposed an arranged marriage.

We said: "It's impossible."

Saman went to Italy, to live like all the other girls.

Italian Girl.

She called herself Italian Girl.

We basically got to know her by reading every word she wrote and

exchanged with her boyfriend.

She was still in touch with her boyfriend right up to the end,

before disappearing completely.

You don't expect the young girl you're following online

to meet an end like that.

- Do you remember anything? - No.

"Urgency and prompt action" are not the words I'd use

in Saman's case.

It was a case with dynamics that were...

disturbing and frightening.

If it hadn't been for the cameras, we wouldn't be

talking about Saman Abbas.

SAMAN THE HIDDEN TRUTH

My mom and the others, they all tell me...

My brother and my uncle, they all tell me I'm in the wrong.

The first thing I'd translated was a voice note from Saman.

She was crying.

Try to forgive me.

this is what I'm meant to do.

It's that famous voice note that I'd heard on TV.

INTERPRETER

It's hard to listen to Saman again.

- It was in May - 2021.

I remember getting a phone call, it was from my

direct commanding officer.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL, CARABINIERI

He said: "There's a girl in Novellara she's missing.

1 MAY 2021

That is the last image that we were able to find of Saman.

What we know is that in the first few minutes of May 1st,

Saman left the house accompanied by her father and mother.

The mother stopped the father. And then continued with...

with Saman.

Then they left the frame.

When she came back she was walking with a, almost,

determined stride, followed by the man, and then they both

went back into the house.

LAWYER FOR PENELOPE, MISSING PERSONS ASSOCIATION

We saw a young girl with a backpack on her shoulders,

calmly walking between her parents.

We didn't see an argument, or even a physical movement

that might've shown that there was tension.

We didn't see

Saman running out and being chased,

in order to be brought back.

The only part that might seem strange was that it was

midnight, in the countryside...

But then you could always theorize: "Maybe the railway

station was nearby so she walked there." Or "maybe

someone was waiting for Saman."

Because it kind of looked like...

like she was getting ready to leave,

like she had all her things and was walking towards a car.

All these years, for me...

I think something different each time I see that video.

Good evening, welcome to "Chi l'ha Visto".

We wanted to talk about Saman tonight.

People wrote to us and said: "A girl disappeared in

Novellara." In reality though, not much more was known.

We knew this girl was 18, that they wanted to marry

her off in Pakistan, and she may have left voluntarily,

but she also may not have.

It's a terrible story, and one that we can only hope

will end with this 18 year old girl being found safe.

She had rebelled against an arranged marriage and, in doing

so, had sought and received help from her local council.

Usually it's family members who ask "Chi l'ha Visto" for help.

In this case though, it wasn't the family who contacted us to

say that Saman had disappeared.

Someone else tipped us off.

That made it a bit complicated, it was

a difficult investigation.

Paolo, over to you.

We started working on it ourselves.

We are in Novellara, in the province of Reggio Emilia.

As you can see, the home we're in is on a farm,

where the head of the household, the father of the family,

who is Pakistani, lives and works as a farm laborer,

as a caretaker, as a handyman.

Everything was confusing, it was strange, but we managed to speak

to the mayor, and she made an appeal, live, on our show.

We hope that Saman has found somewhere safe to stay,

with someone that she trusts...

someone she can turn to for help.

I'm just asking that everyone does what they can to help.

MAYOR OF NOVELLARA, 2014-2024

In similar cases, with girls who are forced into these

arranged marriages, the first thing you fear is that their

families might send them back.

Because once they are sent back, the trail is lost,

or it becomes extremely difficult to trace them.

Right now, I am speaking to Saman.

Your community is here. Novellara's community is here.

Saman, you have every right to live your own life

and we will be ready to support and protect you when you return.

In those first hours, the first photo released of

Saman was a photo that didn't do her justice and that wasn't...

It certainly wasn't the Saman of recent times.

No one would have found her with that photo.

Can we show a better photo, not the one from before?

Of course Federica.

We have another photo that was sent to us right

after our last broadcast.

This is a photograph that really shows her face well.

At first I hoped it wasn't her.

You'd never think they were the same person.

I'll never forget those two images.

It really showed the extreme contrast

between a person's roots...

And this new world.

It was a different Saman.

4 DAYS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE

The Carabinieri in Novellara went to the Abbas home.

They found Haider, Saman's little brother, and their uncle.

The brother said: "She left on her own, we don't know

anything." Whereas the uncle said: "They came to get her,

she left with someone.

Most importantly, the times they gave were very far apart.

It's not like one said she had left half an hour earlier

than what the other had said.

One said that it was early afternoon, the other said

that it was evening.

The commander felt like that was suspicious, so he

seized both of their phones.

However, he was unable to charge them with anything

so he had to let them go.

Both Haider and the uncle, Danish, reported

that Saman's parents had gone over to Pakistan.

They said they were visiting an aunt who was ill.

On the camera footage that we have, we saw them,

on the morning of May 1st, get into a car and drive away.

We saw them exiting the car at Malpensa Airport.

They passed the security checks and boarded a plane to Pakistan.

At a certain point this video...

appeared...

of them at the airport.

It shows him lowering his wife's mask and her smiling.

I thought: "She's smiling, so maybe she really doesn't know

anything about her daughter."

In the first days of May, I realized

Shabbar wasn't here. I expected him to come to work.

I didn't know that he'd gone to Pakistan all of a sudden.

It was normal for them to to return to Pakistan for...

various reasons, and sometimes, like on this occasion, they

wouldn't give anyone notice.

PHONE CALL BETWEEN IVAN BARTOLI AND SHABBAR ABBAS

Abbas! Yeah?

Hey, what's going on here? What do you mean?

The Carabinieri are coming, they came yesterday too

and went into the house,.

They're looking for Saman.

The Carabinieri came every morning to look for Saman,

because she lived here.

Her and her family lived here, on the farm, because I gave

them the caretaker's house.

Shabbar came here many years ago and he was actually one

of the first foreigners to...

to do seasonal work with us.

Eventually, he brought along his wife, Nazia,

and his two children...

his son, Haider, and his daughter, Saman.

A few years after that...

his brother Danish arrived.

He also brought two cousins, Noman UI Haq and Ikram.

When are you back? Tuesday morning at six...

yeah, I'll be back in Italy, don't worry, okay?

- Good! - That's perfect.

Then we can get back to work.

During that phone call, I asked him where Saman was.

So he told me that the year before,

she had run away to Belgium.

Since this was something that had happened already..., to me,

it was absolutely believable that she had run away again.

Did she text you?

- She sent you a message, right? - Yes.

Yes. Great.

Yes, she calls every day.

The truth is, I trusted Shabbar blindly, so at first I

wasn't worried about anything.

It seemed like they all had a good family relationship.

They were really close.

He spoke about Saman and Haider all the time.

He would even brag about them a bit.

He said they were very capable kids,

that they had integrated right away without an issue, that they

were doing great in school...

They were a family that seemed united, that's it.

I kept all of the class photos.

Let's see... okay, this is me.

This is Angelo, well, half his head.

This one here is Harash when he had...

Long hair. Long hair, with the turban.

And this is Saman.

2016, 5 YEARS BEFORE THE DISAPPEARANCE

The three of us attended Lelio Orsi secondary school.

Saman started going there during our third year.

It was an interesting year, this new person

who showed up out of nowhere...

A lot of people were curious about her.

The secondary schools in Novellara definitely

represented what future generations would be like.

As of now 70% of the student population are foreigners.

The local kids don't even make up much of that population.

In 2016 I met Saman, right at the beginning of September.

She spent a lot of time in my classroom.

Because at the time she had teachers who understood

that she needed to learn the language first.

I remember seeing her towards the end of October.

ART TEACHER

She was a very timid girl, obviously.

And she was pretty reserved.

She'd been dropped into a completely

different world from her own.

CLASSMATE OF SAMAN

And it was a shock.

The teacher decided to seat her next to me.

I was... at the back of the class because I...

I mean, I disrupted the lessons a lot.

I couldn't sit still, I couldn't keep quiet.

And I guess they thought I could help her...

because how do you learn a language if you don't sit

next to someone who speaks it?

And all I did was talk.

Saman and I ended up talking right away because...

we speak a similar language.

I'm originally from Punjab, in India.

Whereas she was from the Punjab region in Pakistan.

After a couple of months of me and Saman spending time

together, or at least talking, I was kinda shocked

when Saman stopped me one day during break and said:

"Can we be friends?"

It wasn't a question I expected. I guess my--

Italian side had already considered us friends.

But as someone who had just moved here,

she didn't see it that way.

She had come from a foreign country with an

old fashioned mindset.

That's why she was special. She didn't really...

give much weight to the rules, if we can call them that,

that boys aren't supposed to interact with girls.

I especially remember when we were in the art room,

because that was the moment that we all got close with her.

She always did henna on her hands, so we asked her if she

could do it on our hands too.

The henna lasted... about a week, so then once that week

was over we were all excited and ready to do it again.

I think...

we...

we did good...

but maybe not enough.

Because...

we knew nothing about what was happening

with her outside of school.

Like what her hobbies were, what she liked doing.

Whether she went out or not.

We knew she lived in Novellara, that her family was Pakistani.

But...

that was it.

Hi.

My name is Ali Haider.

I'm Saman Abbas's brother.

She called me Hadri. With an "I" at the end.

And...

Also "little one", "my sweet little one".

That's what she always called me.

My nicknames.

We didn't have a relationship like sisters and brothers,

it was more like a friendship.

I mean, we played together, we had fun.

I miss those moments, even now. I really miss her.

In Pakistan we lived in a little village.

- Charanwala. - We didn't have much money.

My dad came to Italy. He came here in 2007.

He helped us a lot.

Honestly, without his help we couldn't afford food.

The rest of us moved to Italy in 2016.

My dad picked us up.

I remember it being great, I kept hugging him

and we talked a lot.

Things were different in Italy.

The surroundings were different.

The air was different, the land was different.

Everything was different.

Alright, we're now going to see the weight

of this watermelon here, which belongs to Ivan Baltoli.

One hundred and nine kilos!

The region is deeply committed to supporting agriculture.

It has always been a vital part of our local economy

and our community.

We lived in the countryside.

The room I shared with my sister was huge.

Sometimes she slept in mom and dad's room too,

because there was a double bed and two single beds in there.

I was closer to my mom.

Because I mostly grew up with her.

My sister was closer to my dad.

And my dad was closer to my sister.

My dad and sister were exactly the same as each other.

Identical.

Everything was going well, we were all happy.

I never thought this would happen.

I never ever thought something like this...

could happen.

2021, 5 DAYS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE

SEARCH OF THE ABBAS HOME

Yes, okay, I also put the name of the farm.

- Okay, understood. - Thanks.

- Who's coming? - The dog handlers from Po.

In the first few days of the investigation we had asked

the local authorities to keep quiet so we could operate

more effectively and quickly, without any obstacles.

Is all this from the last search or did your

family leave it this way?

I don't know.

You have to imagine that the Baltoli farm is located on

the edge of the provincial road.

So there's constant traffic. It isn't in some hidden area.

We ended up interviewing more than...

180 people.

They were all people who passed under the road

monitoring cameras on that stretch of road in Novellara.

We learned that Saman didn't get into any of their cars.

That meant that the hypothesis that her parents

accompanied her and then she went off with someone else

is not a viable hypothesis.

And this was the first established fact:

she left the house and that's where we lost her.

Scrolling forward through the video, a few minutes

after Saman left, the father came out of the house again...

And then he went back in holding something.

That something, based on its shape, was at first thought

to be Saman's backpack.

But it was later found out that Shabbar was actually just

carrying a bag full of underwear that his wife had hung out

to dry between the greenhouses.

The situation was very, very strange.

Saman never would have left and just abandoned her backpack.

We figured something terrible had happened.

The Carabinieri in Novellara and Guastalla,

who had done the investigation, and the Public Prosecutor

coordinating them, were inclined to pursue the investigative

hypothesis of abduction.

It was a hard blow.

The Carabinieri kept pressing us with questions

and conducting searches.

And so, we were completely caught off guard.

During all of that...

the story of...

of Saman's lack of schooling came out.

Everyone found out that she was...

no longer in school.

Saman had confessed to my wife that she would have liked

to continue going to school.

She had said: "Dad doesn't want me to."

2017, 4 YEARS BEFORE THE DISAPPEARANCE

After attending secondary school, Saman never finished

the rest of her schooling.

That a girl of her age had stopped attending school

when she wasn't yet close to finishing it...

it really shocked me.

When the report of Saman's non attendance came in,

the local authorities went to visit her home.

I believe they carried out a couple of checks, however,

when they were unable to locate the family anywhere in the area,

they realized there was nothing more they could do

and had to end their investigation into the matter.

The officers drew up a report, essentially saying, "The family

has returned to Pakistan because their seasonal work has ended."

What was done wasn't enough.

There was no one around who could give advice to Shabbar.

To tell him to send Saman to school or to do

other activities, to do anything at all, just

to get her out of the house.

It doesn't matter how many Italians you know,

there's no guarantee that you're gonna get help with integrating.

It's very easy to say, "They're not trying to integrate,

they don't want to integrate into this world." I think

that this family was on its own.

It's clear that no one had the desire to help them.

We really pushed him on it, we spoke about it often with him,

and regardless of what we said, he refused

to let her continue school.

Eventually we gave up.

That might have been our biggest mistake... we probably

shouldn't have given up.

That was a mistake.

She was really upset about it because she wanted

to go to school instead of staying at home.

My dad would hug her and say...

"Just keep staying here.

Do it for me, because I can't send you to school in Italy.

There are so many boys, I don't want to see

someone hitting on you or...

Or see you talking to some boy." Stuff like that.

The question we always asked was: "What does this young girl

do at home all day?" I mean, we rarely saw her.

She would get really angry.

She would see what I was doing and say:

"Why can he do this and I can't?

Why can he go out like that and I can't?"

She always asked that.

To my mom she would say things like:

"Why can he wear tight jeans or whatever clothing he wants to...

why can't I wear what I want?

Because he's a male? Is that why?"

There was a lot of confusion. There were a ton of fights.

And she wasn't afraid of anyone.

If she wanted to say something, she'd say it to your face.

Whenever I saw her brother at school, I would ask him:

"So, has your sister started school...?" He always said no.

Then afterwards his family went to Pakistan.

His sister had gone to Pakistan with her family and he had

stayed here with their uncle.

And from there, there was a lot that happened ...

nothing positive.

PAKISTAN, 2019

My parents...

and my sister went to Pakistan.

After they had been there a while my dad called me one day.

And he told me: "We are going to have your sister...

get married to...

Akmal.

I had no idea that would happen.

Akmal was someone from my dad's family.

They were like, "he's a good person." At the time

I didn't say anything...

But...

he was too old for my sister.

We found out there was a third version of Saman.

First we had a Saman with the headscarf.

Then we had Saman with red lipstick and red headband.

Later we learn about Saman in a sparkling traditional Pakistani

outfit, involved in some kind of engagement ceremony.

We wanted to understand this story, so we had to go

and speak with the cousin.

So let's see who this cousin is.

Do you know anything about Shabbar?

No, you would have to go to his house.

You're all related so surely you've heard something.

Why are you asking me?

You have to go to the house of the person involved.

You can't bother people who aren't involved.

I have to say the cousin surprised us.

Because we expected...

I think all of us Italians expected an old,

fat, greasy, sweaty man.

Yes, I'm very sorry about everything that's happening.

Instead it was a handsome, attractive,

polite young man who, obviously wouldn't say much.

The only thing he said to us was: "I'm sorry

about what's happening."

She seemed...

not to be rude, but, naive.

At that age you don't realize all of the responsibilities

you're about to have.

During the engagement she seemed happy to me.

I...

never had a reason to think otherwise.

In my opinion she didn't realize how great the burden

really is...

of a marriage.

And maybe she realized what she wanted afterwards.

Because this photo is different from the photo

with the red headband.

SIGN UP CREATE PROFILE

WHAT'S YOUR DATE OF BIRTH? 18 DECEMBER 2002

It makes perfect sense to me that she called herself "Italian

Girl" as an act of rebellion.

Italian Girl. She called herself Italian Girl.

She chose to be an Italian Girl.

"Here I am, here I am.

My name is Italian Girl.

I post all these photos like a typical Italian girl,

these photos with my hair done, with lots of make up,

I make myself look pretty. It's what you didn't want."

I've always believed that there's no difference

between people who force a girl to take off her hijab and people

who force a girl to wear it.

It's the girls choice.

Everything she did, in my opinion,

was to go against her parents.

If they'd given her a bit of space, maybe she wouldn't have

called herself Italian Girl.

She would've just called herself Saman Abbas.

For Saman, her smartphone represented a window

into a world she didn't know.

Everything seemed magical to her.

So Saman ends up getting engaged to this cousin of hers

who is a Pakistani landowner...

But, what she was experiencing and discovering

through her smartphone, was a completely different world.

Saman loved social media.

She was always posting stories, love songs.

a lot of that sort of thing.

I mean, she posted a ton of love videos, basically.

She was a girl who , just like every other teenager,

was searching for her own path.

Given her age, she could have been the daughter of any one

of us who were investigating.

So we all felt very invested in it.

On social media Saman ended up meeting this guy, Said.

She saw his profile... it was this handsome guy with gold

watches who was always standing next to shiny cars, you know?

She thought that, Said, this guy from Belgium, was going to be

the turning point in her life.

JUNE 2020

I was asleep that day.

I didn't know anything. She said: "Sleep, sleep."

Once I fell back asleep, she left.

When my parents realized, they went straight

to the Carabinieri and said: "We can't find our daughter."

so They checked all the cameras.

They checked everywhere.

When we found out about Saman's escape to Belgium,

we learned that she took some money that was in the house.

Well, it was several thousand euros, actually.

She left home all by herself.

And she reached this boy in Belgium.

This story...

it really spoke of Saman's character.

Saman is a determined girl.

She has no qualms about leaving her family to reach

some random person abroad.

She would call us, she'd do video calls with my parents.

My parents told her to come back from beligium.

They would say things like: "come home

and then we can talk".

I'd always say: "Please come back,

because I miss you." Seriously.

I mean, I hated being alone.

My mom and my dad always cried a lot.

They also said that...

Basically he'd brainwashed her and just wanted

to play with her.

Then he'd throw her away.

She seemed happy in the video calls.

But she was also a little bit sad, mainly because she

missed my parents and me a lot.

Especially me, it seemed like.

At the beginning she kept saying: "I'm not coming back."

But then... I mean...

They started finding ways to persuade her.

I also kept begging her to come home.

And then...

she finally came back.

When she came back from Belgium she never regretted it.

And she came back with a tattoo. It said "S Love".

I guess she did it for her boyfriend.

Once Saman finally returned to Italy, the Carabinieri

summoned her and asked her some questions: where she had been,

what she did.

And she answered: "I had asked my father several times

if I could go visit my friends who are in Belgium,

and he always said no, that I couldn't go on my own.

"Who are these friends and how did you organize the trip?

"They're schoolmates I had in Pakistan."

So she told a a little white lie.

THE PARTY SAMAN ABBAS

As time went on, this lie that Saman told... would become...

a defining feature.

THE PARTY SAMAN ABBAS

Not even her parents admitted the truth...

that she had gone to Belgium to visit a boy.

Because in that moment, they became terrified that that

the whole marriage promise made to the Pakistani cousin

might vanish into nothing.

My dad said: "How can I...

How can I show my face now?

How can I possibly show my face, when my daughter

ran away like that?"

"And without saying anything...

She ran away from home and now, if relatives or anyone else

finds out, they'll spit on us."

For him, it was all about honor.

At home her life was definitely more controlled.

She would go into the bathroom to use her phone, and my parents

would say: "Why is she spending more time in the bathroom?"

They always said that social media ruins children,

you know what I mean?

The primary consequence from that trip to Belgium was...

that her documents were taken away from her.

Taking someone's documents away from them means depriving them

of autonomy and independence.

Yes, she was controlled, but...

I know this for a fact: they never laid hands on her.

Dad never would have laid hands on her.

COMPLAINT OF SAID

FOLLOWING A REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE REGGIO EMILIA POLICE

OF DOMESTIC ABUSE BY A CITIZEN RESIDENT IN BELGIUM.

In a turn of events, it was the Belgian boy who

brought a situation of distress involving Saman to the attention

of the authorities.

He set Interpol in motion...

basically what he said was that a girl had returned

to Novellara, but he feared for her safety.

HE DID NOT ACCEPT HIS DAUGHTER SEEING THE BOY LIVING IN BELGIUM.

The Carabinieri in Novellara immediately went to check

whether she was okay or not.

SHE HAD AN ABRASION ON HER LEFT CHEEK, SAMAN ABBAS REPORTED THAT

But...

IN THE PREVIOUS DAYS SHE HAD BEEN BEATEN BY HER FATHER.

she just...

played it down.

SHE WAS REPEATEDLY INVITED TO GO TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL FOR TREATMENT

AND TO REPORT HER FATHER, BUT THE YOUNG WOMAN REFUSED.

That episode, after her return from Belgium,

was a sign that something was happening in that family.

When Saman came back from Belgium, we noticed something

was different with Shabbar...

he had changed.

He became more withdrawn, some days he didn't come

to work, he was very nervous.

Something had changed in him.

I remember the very first interview that I ever

had with the mother, the father and... and Saman.

What struck me most about the father was that his eyes

were totally bloodshot, I mean, they were really red.

I don't know, it made an impression on me.

SOCIAL WORKER

The story begins like so many others... with a report

coming in from the prosecutor's office, from the Bologna

Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, because a girl left home.

She had run away from home.

The parents had reported her missing to the Carabinieli,

because she was still a minor at the time...

from there my investigation began.

When I managed to speak to Saman alone...

the best way to describe it is that she was

like an overflowing river.

I mean, she really had a lot to say to me, she just kept

talking, but she had even more to say when the whole story

of the arranged marriage eventually came to light.

She did not want to marry this older cousin.

She told me that her departure was imminent

and asked me for help to prevent it from happening

because she didn't want to go through with the marriage.

She brought up the issue of her documents to me several times.

She kept saying:

"get my documents back from my parents."

For me, that was something that we could address later.

My first priority was: "Okay, look, we need to get you out of

here, where can we take you?

Let's get you somewhere safe and then afterwards, we can

deal with everything else."

During my conversation with Saman, I explained to her

what it would mean to be placed in a supervised residential

community for minors.

I told her that it was a pretty big step, because it means,

essentially, "betraying" your own family, your parents.

And she immediately refused.

"It's true that my family is strict.

It's true, they want to marry me to a cousin, but I'll manage."

This is not an insignificant part of these dynamics.

On one hand you have the possibility of seeking

protection and being placed in the safeguarding system...

but on the other hand you have your family.

The only people you trust...

but all of a sudden they turn their backs on you

and they become your enemies.

How do you make sense of it?

November 10th.

"Hi, this decision was really difficult for me, but I accept

everything you're telling me, I want to go with you."

PLEASE, DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO QUICKLY.

The parents had managed to move the flight up.

They had her scheduled to leave almost immediately.

That day I signed the order to remove Saman.

I told her to come in the following day, she said yes, but

I told her she absolutely had to be accompanied by her mother.

The mother knew nothing about it.

13 NOVEMBER 2020

That morning the atmosphere was bleak.

I let them both in.

Then I sent Saman out...

and I continued speaking with the mother.

It all happened very, very fast, it was very fleeting.

In the garage there were three colleagues of mine...

waiting for her.

They were there to take her to the community for minors.

This girl, she was so brave...

And she was also reckless.

We were dealing with a girl who evidently believed she

was heading towards freedom.

I got home, they told me: "They've taken our daughter."

They told me... mom and dad said...

"These people are...

" I mean, "pieces of shit".

"And she didn't do anything to help the situation either,

because she went and told them everything.

They said: We're left with nothing now.

We can't show our faces outside.

Either we die or we do what we have to do.

I also thought about going to a community.

I wanted to leave for a while.

But then I thought about it and I said: "If I go too...

Then they're gonna feel awful without having either

of their children at home.

I didn't stay there out of fear...

it was out of respect.

But Saman's brother cannot become a hero in this story.

Because when the Carabinieri went to the house looking for

Saman, and she wasn't there...

Danish, the uncle, was there and the brother's there.

They were asked where Saman was...

The brother said nothing. You remember that?

1 MAY 2021 THE DAY OF THE DISAPPEARANCE

AUNT: HOW ARE YOU, HAIDER? YOU MUSTN'T SAY ANYTHING MORE,

MOM WAS ILL AND DAD TOOK HER TO PAKISTAN.

My aunt from England said to me...

"You have to stay calm, what's happened has happened.

You have to forget, just tell yourself that nothing happened.

Tell yourself she ran away.

You can't tell anyone that something happened.

AUNT: WHATEVER ANYONE ASKS YOU, YOU MUSTN'T SAY ANYTHING.

EVEN IN YOUR HEAD IT MUST BE LIKE THAT: SHE LEFT LIKE SHE LEFT BEFORE.

I mean, He has to know what happened.

The brother said absolutely nothing.

Then he disappeared.

5 DAYS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE

One morning I showed up to the farm and I realized

that everyone had left.

Haider is gone with his uncle Danish and the two cousins,

Noman UI Haq and Ikram...

they were gone.

We decided...

I mean, my uncle decided to leave.

He decided to run away to France.

I didn't want to go. We went to Imperia.

My uncle had actually contacted someone who smuggled

people into there… into…

France.

We spent 14 hours inside a truck and we weren't allowed to move.

Nobody could breathe. And then...

the police caught us.

My uncle and I didn't have documents.

Ikram and Noman did, in their shoes.

They took them out and let Ikram and Noman go.

Then they took me and my uncle.

They ended up getting stopped by the police in Imperia.

The adult was given an order to appear before the authorities

and the minor was placed in a holding facility for minors.

So our first course of action was to go and speak to the only

person who knew what was really happening and he was being held

in a holding facility.

Our team and the prosecutor's office agreed to move him,

because there was no point in him staying in Imperia.

So I decided to send the commander of the Novellara

station to go and get him.

I told him: "I don't care how long it takes...

But by the time you bring him back, we need to have

a clear picture of what happened because he's the only one

who can tell us."

The commander from Novellara...

He asked me questions, he asked me what happened...

I mean... I had to tell the truth, I couldn't lie.

I want to tell you everything, but not now, not now.

Not now. But I'll tell you everything.

And I told the whole truth.

I saw...

everything.

He killed my sister