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When James Le Mesurier fell to his death he left behind a tangle of truths and lies.

On 11 November 2019 James Le Mesurier was found dead in a street in Istanbul. He was the latest casualty in a very unusual war – one fought not on the battlefield, but online.

Le Mesurier was a mysterious figure with a taste for the finer things who served in the British Army in several of the world’s hotspots before focusing his energies on war-ravaged Syria from 2014. He co-founded the White Helmets, a Syrian civil defence force who filmed themselves pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble of bombed out buildings.

Soon, the White Helmets - and Le Mesurier - found themselves at the centre of a global race to control the narrative in the Syrian War. In this investigative series Mayday, presenter Chloe Hadjimatheou talks to the people who knew James, including his widow Emma, his ex-wife and former army colleagues, as well as those on the ground in Syria still working as White Helmets today in an effort to piece together James’ story and that of the White Helmets. She speaks to some of the White Helmet’s detractors and follows up accusations about the organisation to try and understand the truth surrounding them.

Chloe Hadjimatheou says: “Making this series has been an extraordinary experience, as listeners will discover. It started out being an investigation into the story of a man with an astonishing life and a mysterious death but it ended up taking me on a bizarre journey down rabbit holes of misinformation. Ultimately this is a story about how truth functions in modern warfare.”

Mayday: 23/01/2021 GMT

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23/01/2021 GMT

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