CCTV video may show missing British girls in Istanbul

Turkish TV station purports to have obtained footage of three teenagers who fled UK to join Islamic State

By AP 1 March 2015, 9:25 pm

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The families of missing British girls Amira Abase and Shamima Begum after being interviewed by the media in central London, on February 22, 2015. (AFP/Laura Lean, Pool)

ISTANBUL — A Turkish television station says it has obtained a video showing three missing British teenagers at an Istanbul bus terminal before they boarded a bus to a city near Turkey’s border with Syria.

A Haber news site, which has close ties to the government, released the footage, which it says is of the schoolgirls. Authorities believe they fled England to join the Islamic State extremist group.

A Haber item cited police officials in its report. But Turkish officials reached by The Associated Press, including an Istanbul police official, would not confirm the authenticity of the video.

A few aspects of the girls’ dress in the video appear to match security video stills released by British police of the teens at London’s Gatwick Airport, prior to boarding a flight to Istanbul on February 17.

Haber says the two-minute video shows shots of the three girls walking in and out of three separate bus offices over a period of 17 hours on February 17 and February 18 at the terminal in Istanbul’s Esenler district. British authorities previously identified the missing girls as Shamima Begum, 15; Kadiza Sultana, 16; and Amira Abase, 15.