Why Are Lebanese TV Channels Providing a Murderer With a Platform to Defend Himself?

Having successfully fled to Turkey hours after strangling his wife to death, a Lebanese man has been hosted by two different local TV channels over the phone, as TV presenters gave him air time to "narrate the events of how he has killed his wife." Yet, social media users protested TV channels' decision to host him in several talk shows saying; he should only be persecuted and not given space to "defend" his crime.

Translation: "Ibrahim Ghazal, husband of model Zeina Kanjo reveals new details to Al Jadeed TV."

Ibrahim Ghazal had made news headlines in Lebanon and other neighboring countries as he confessed to killing his wife the Lebanese model Zeina Kanjo.

Ghazal who had traveled to Turkey only hours after the crime has been a popular name online as people looked up news of the crime and examined his social media profiles in an attempt to take a look at his relationship with the wife he killed last week.

Translation: "Tune in for a special interview with Ibrahim Ghazal, the murderer of his wife Zeina Kanjo in the next news hour, in which he reveals how the crime took place."

However, the decisions of MTV and Al Jadeed TV to announce interviews with the murderer as he continues to hide in Istanbul have prompted many angry reactions online, as commentators considered it an attempt to whitewash Ghazal's crime.

Online users have called on TV channels to prioritize being against domestic violence over the extensive viewership gained during interviews with the main suspect of a crime that has attracted the interest of millions in Lebanon and elsewhere.

Even though he had pledged to return to Lebanon and abide by all laws in terms of investigations, Ghazal insists that he had "accidentally " killed his wife while he was silencing her during a heated argument on the night Zeina died.