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NEW YORK (AP) – Police are investigating the mysterious deaths of two sisters from Saudi Arabia, whose bodies, linked by videotape, were found stranded on the waterfront in New York City. last week.
The sisters, Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were discovered on October 24 on a bank of the Hudson River, about 225 km from Fairfax, Virginia, where they lived and were reported missing in August. .
On Tuesday, the investigators still had not determined how they died. The sisters' bodies were stuck together and facing each other, but did not show any obvious signs of trauma, the police said. They were both fully clothed.
Their mother told the detectives that the day before the bodies were found, she had received a phone call from a Saudi Arabian embassy official, ordering the family to leave the United States because her daughters had requested political asylum, announced Tuesday the New York police.
The Saudi Consulate General in New York said in a statement that he had "appointed a lawyer to follow the case closely".
New York City police sent a detective to Virginia to learn more about the sisters. Chief Inspector Dermot Shea said they were particularly interested in what had happened since their disappearance and by what had brought them to New York.
"We are looking at all the clues of their past lives," said Shea.
The pathologist's office was investigating the cause of death. The absence of obvious trauma seemed to exclude a theory that they jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the river.
In his statement, the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia said that embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and "extended their support and help during this difficult time". The sisters were students "accompanying their brother to Washington".
Tala and Rotana left Saudi Arabia to settle in the United States in 2015 with their mother in Fairfax, a suburb of Washington DC, police said.
Rotana was enrolled at George Mason University, but had left in the spring. A spokesman for George Mason described the news of his death as "tragic" and said the university was cooperating with the police.
Police said that the sisters left the family home and were placed in a shelter after a previous disappearance in December 2017.
They were again reported missing on August 24th.
The police initially struggled to identify the bodies as much of the city and the country was pierced by another mystery: the package of bombs sent to a dozen prominent Democrats and to the CNN office At New York.
Police published sketches of the sister's face and posted repeated calls to the public to identify them on social media.
"We are looking for justice for these two girls and knowing exactly what happened," Shea said.
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Follow Mike Sisak at www.twitter.com/mikesisak
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