A former
companion of Prince William and Prince Harry was revealed yesterday as a
British hostage being held in Syria by jihadi fanatics.
Photojournalist
John Cantlie is shown on the latest Islamic State propaganda video
claiming he has been ‘abandoned’ by the Government and pleading with
them to ‘negotiate’ with his captors.
The
slickly-made video, which has Arabic subtitles, marks a significant
change of tactics by IS, who have previously released barbaric footage
of hostages, including Mr Haines, being executed in a desert.
Mr
Cantlie – who had previously been kidnapped by another group in Syria
and rescued only to return to the frontline, be captured by militants
and sold to IS – appears dressed in an orange top and sitting at a
wooden table against a black screen.
Scroll down for video
British
journalist John Cantlie sits alone at a desk in a darkened room in a
slickly-edited propaganda video released today by the Islamic State
His voice is clear and calm as he
addresses the camera in a slickly-edited propaganda video that is
markedly different to footage released by the jihadi militants in recent
weeks
He remains calm as he says that he has
'nothing to lose' before adding 'maybe I will live and maybe I will
die'. At one point he makes a gun gesture at his head
Calm but clearly speaking under orders on the 3min 21sec clip posted on YouTube, he admits he does not know his fate.
His
message is addressed to the ‘Western public’ and he calls on them to
act to ‘change this seemingly inevitable sequence of events’, by forcing
the US and British governments to change their policies on dealing with
hostage-takers.
He
says: ‘I’ve been abandoned by my government and my fate now lies in the
hands of Islamic State...Maybe I will live and maybe I will die, but I
want to take this opportunity to convey some facts.’
The
43-year-old, who has been held since November 2012, was part of a small
group of motorbike enthusiasts that joined Prince Harry and Prince
William on the Enduro Africa charity bike ride in 2008.
He
was the event’s official photographer on the gruelling eight-day
1,000-mile ride across South Africa that saw the small team live, eat,
sleep and ride together.
Mr
Cantlie is said to have got to know the princes extremely well during
the trip – with Harry in particular reportedly sharing his passion for
motorbikes.
He
is not thought to have had any contact with them since. A news blackout
has been in place since Mr Cantlie’s latest abduction but he becomes
the third Briton known to have been kidnapped by IS following aid worker
David Haines, 44, who was murdered on video, and Alan Henning, 47, the
taxi driver the British fanatic known as ‘Jihadi John’ has warned will
be his next victim.
Mr Cantlie, pictured in June 2012, and
a Dutch photographer were captured in July 2012 while covering the
civil war between President Assad's army and rebel fighters
More
than 80 journalists have been kidnapped in Syria over the last three
years - and more than 20 are still missing, according to the Committee
to Protect Journalists.
Other figures estimate that more than 20 foreign aid workers and journalists are currently being held by the Islamic State.
Mr
Cantlie, from Haslemere, Surrey, was first kidnapped in Syria in July
2012 while covering the civil war between President Assad's army and
rebel fighters.
The ordeal left Mr Cantlie with nerve damage in his left arm and limited movement in his fingers.
In
the new video, Mr Cantlie identifies himself as a journalist who worked
for 'some of the bigger newspapers' in the UK inlcuding the The Sunday
Times, The Sun and The Sunday Telegraph.
He
criticises the war on the Islamic State and says that he and other
British and U.S. hostages have been abandoned by their governments.
He
remains calm as he says that he has 'nothing to lose' before adding
'maybe I will live and maybe I will die'. At one point he makes a gun
gesture at his head.
Entitled
'Lend me Your ears,' the three-minute long video is previewed as the
first in a series of 'programmes' in which Cantlie says he will reveal
'the truth' about the Islamic State.
The claim suggests that the group will release further videos of the British hostage. It is not known when the clip, which was released by the group's media arm, Al-Furqan, was filmed.
The
lecture-style video is different than brutal footage released by the
jihadi group, which showed a masked militant beheading other hostages.
Unlike
the group's previous videos, no Islamic State fighters appear alongside
Mr Cantlie. He is also seen sitting at a table in a darkened room,
rather than outside in the desert.
There
are few clues as to Mr Cantlie's location, except for a faint noise -
perhaps a car horn - which could suggest that he is in or near a town.
His
hair is shaved and his beard is trimmed into a goatee - making his
appearance very similar to that of fellow British hostages Alan Henning
and David Haines, who were seen in a video released earlier this month.
In a dramatic change of tone, there is no violence and no threatening in the most recent video - and there are no weapons.
The
footage taken of the other hostages, including American journalists
James Foley and Steven Sotloff, was characterised by the masked figure
of 'Jihadi John'. He - and his weapons - are absent from the video of Mr
Cantlie.
John Cantllie was first kidnapped on 19 July
when he went to a camp he had previously visited - just two miles from
the Turkish border crossing of Bab Al-Hawa - in north west Syria
But
what is common to all of the videos is that the hostage is used to
spread the message of the Islamic State and to question Western policy.
In
previous videos, the hostage has addressed Barack Obama or David
Cameron. In this latest clip, the public are addressed already.
It
is the second time that Mr Cantlie has been held as a hostage in Syria.
In July 2012, Mr Cantlie was held for a week by Islamic extremists
along with Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans.
Escaped: Mr Cantlie, pictured after he
fled Syria in 2012, and his Dutch colleague Jeroen Oerlemans were
kidnapped when they went to a camp they had previously visited, unaware
that terrorists had taken it over
Mr
Cantlie and his colleague were captured while they were covering the
civil war between President Assad's army and rebel fighters.
The
two men were kidnapped on 19 July when they went to a camp they had
previously visited - just two miles from the Turkish border crossing of
Bab Al-Hawa - that they thought belonged to the Free Syrian Army.
But
the men weren't Syrians. They were jihadists who had travelled to the
country hoping to overthrow the regime and establish an Islamist state.
Some
of them spoke English with British accents. About nine of the men in
the camp had London accents - and two could not speak any Arabic.
One
of the men who had come from the UK accused the journalists of being
spies - but Mr Cantlie later said there was another British man, a
trained doctor, who treated the captives humanely.
Mr Cantlie later said that the man was planning to return to his senior post in a South London A&E department.
When
Mr Cantlie tried to escape on the second of his seven days in
captivity, one of those who opened fire was British, wounding him in the
elbow and his Dutch friend in the leg.
He was later treated by the doctor, who was using a clearly labelled NHS medical kit.
When asked his name, he told the captives: ‘Just call me the doctor – I’m the only one here.’
The
medic, who said he was 28 and had a wife and child in Britain, was also
among the leaders of a group who were planning to behead ‘spies’ and
was furious when the execution of two Syrians he believed to be
undercover agents was halted.
Speaking
at the time, Mr Cantlie told the Daily Mail of his British captor:
‘When he told me he was an NHS doctor, I thought it was weird.
‘This
is a man who has taken an oath to save people and help them, and here
he is walking around with a Kalashnikov and preaching sharia law. There
are not any doctors who I know that do that.
The video of John Cantlie emerged just
days after British aid worker Alan Henning, pictured, appeared in
footage released by the terror group
‘He
clearly believed in what he was doing but to follow something to that
extreme is the disturbing thing. He was visibly upset when the execution
was called off.’
In
a macabre twist, the doctor, who spoke in a South London accent and
kept his face covered with sunglasses and a scarf – said he was glad of
the experience in Syria as when he returned to Britain as he wanted to
specialise in trauma injuries.
Mr
Cantlie added: ‘He said treating jihadists wounded in battle was good
training and had a pack of gauzes, medicine, IV drips and medical gear.
‘As he treated the gunshot wound in my arm, he clearly knew what he was doing. He was very well-trained.’
He
said of the doctor: ‘I asked for his help as we were both from London
but he refused to even send a text to my girlfriend to say we were
alive. He said he would be beheaded if he did.
‘He said, “I can’t be in here too long because the other guys say I’m too nice to you”.’
‘He
stabilised Jeroen with saline drips, that had NHS logos, gave him
antibiotics and stitched his wound. His assistant, another Londoner,
bandaged my wounds. This guy had shot at me as we tried to escape.
The
next day, to Mr Cantlie’s horror, he saw a trestle table being erected
and heard knives being sharpened, but later learned these were for two
Syrians who were eventually spared after repenting and promising to
follow sharia law.
Throughout
his ordeal, Mr Cantlie claims that he was kept handcuffed in a tent. On
one occasion he heard the doctor on the phone to his family.
Both
photographers eventually managed to escape from the camp in Northern
Syria with the help of the Free Syrian Army, the rebels fighting Assad's
forces.
Speaking after his return to the UK, Mr Cantlie, who
suffered nerve damage in his left arm and now has only limited movement
in his fingers, said he was still eager to return to Syria to report on
the war despite his traumatic experience.
He
said: ‘I am itching to get back out there. The only thing stopping me
is my cameras, as I lost them out there and need to buy some more.’
In
November 2012, Mr Cantlie decided to go back to Syria to continue his
reporting from the warzone - and some of his photographs from that trip
appeared in a Sunday Telegraph article. It was during this trip that Mr
Cantlie was abducted.
Nothing was publicly heard of Mr Cantlie after that date until the release of the latest video by the IS fighters.
Deputy
Prime Minister Nick Clegg told the BBC the Foreign Office would examine
the video to ‘look at its origins and check its veracity’.
He
added: ‘I don’t think we need any reminding of what an odious and
barbaric movement IS are. They call themselves Islamic State [but] they
are nothing to do with Islam, which is a peace-loving religion, they are
certainly not a state, it’s just a murderous medieval terrorist
outfit.’
The
UN General Assembly next week would see world leaders decide how to
support ‘legitimate governments in the region in order to, bit by bit,
dismantle and squeeze IS out of existence’, he said.
Jihadists: An undated file image
posted on a militant website shows fighters from the Islamic State
marching in the terror stronghold of Raqqa in Syria
Foreign
Secretary Philip Hammond said he was aware of the video but had not
seen it. British and US intelligence and Special Forces are desperately
trying to discover where Mr Henning, Mr Cantlie and other Western
hostages are being held.
In
Copenhagen today, Mr Hammond said the Islamic State group 'is not just a
threat to the stability of the Middle East region but to all of us in
our homelands.'
Asked about the video, he told reporters that he had heard about it but has not yet seen it.
'Obviously we'll look very closely at any material that's been released on the Internet,' he said, declining further comment.
Potential
rescue plans have been drawn up while a massive surveillance and
intelligence operation is focused around IS headquarters in the northern
Syrian city of Raqqa.
On Thursday night Cage, a Muslim pressure group, called on the Government to pay ransoms for UK hostages and negotiate with IS.
Several
countries, including France, are thought to have paid millions to free
IS hostages, much to the anger of UK ministers and MPs. Tory MP Nadhim
Zahawi said paying ransoms ‘would lead to more hostage-taking, more
murders and more misery caused by these criminals’.
Fellow
Tory James Gray said it would be ‘completely wrong’ to try to negotiate
with IS. ‘You cannot buy these people off. They are mad and they are
vicious and they are murderers,’ he said. ‘The only thing they
understand is them being destroyed and they should be destroyed.’
It
comes just a day after more than 100 Muslim leaders signed a statement
begging the jihadi group to release British aid worker Alan Henning.
The
Islamic State, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, has already
beheaded two American journalists and one British aid worker in recent
weeks in what it said was reprisal for U.S. air strikes against the
group in Iraq.
Mr
Henning is currently facing death at the hands of ISIS's British
executioner 'Jihadi John' and was paraded before the cameras in a video
of fellow hostage David Haines's murder.
Dozens
of Imams from around the UK criticised the terror group as 'monsters'
for the brutal murder of Mr Haines and insisted killing Mr Henning would
be 'un-Islamic'.
U.S.
President Barack Obama has been trying to build an international
coalition to destroy Islamic State, a militant group which has exploited
the chaos of Syria and Iraq's conflict to seize swathes of territories
in both countries.
The
United States has already carried out scores of air strikes against the
group in Iraq and Obama said in a policy speech he would not hesitate
to strike it in Syria as well.
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