Story On the Kidnapped Brit Journalist

[Annie]

Wow, he's really young and he seems to have been very cool:

THE TELEGRAPH

.......It was the first of a series of mock executions. In all, four men took turns to put their guns to my head and pull the trigger. The first time, I didn't know the weapon wasn't loaded. It felt surreal . . . like a bad film.

I kept shouting "Sahafi, sahafi" (journalist). But they were raging. I was pistol-whipped. They screamed in my face, calling me an animal. They were an unreasoning mob, driven by hatred. At that point, after hours of fear and uncertainty about my fate, all I could think was: they are going to kill me.

This was undoubtedly the worst moment of a terrifying ordeal that I will never forget. It had begun the previous evening, Thursday, at about 11 o'clock, shortly after I had checked into a Basra hotel.......

In all, about 30 men were involved in my abduction. They came and went, conferring about my fate. One had a particularly sinister, reptilian voice. When I said I was a journalist, he said: "Ah. But you are also British." I knew it wasn't a compliment.

I had been determined to become a journalist while growing up in London. I went to Westminster School and York University, where I read history, but the prospect of covering stories about golden weddings and missing kittens on a local newspaper did not really appeal. That's why I went out to work in Yemen, to learn Arabic and work for a local newspaper there. I was just 21. Once the war was over in Iraq, it seemed an obvious place for me to go. My family gave me their blessing, after a fashion: the country was safer last summer. A group of young journalists went out to work on the Baghdad Bulletin, one of the newspapers set up after official hostilities ended. When it folded I stayed on, freelancing for various British and American titles.........

I assumed I was going to be killed, and decided to try to make a break for it. I worked off my blindfold, which was quite loose, and managed to untie the rope that ran behind me, linking my feet to my hands. Through the darkness, I made out the shape of a large stove, and realised that I was in a kitchen.

With difficulty, I got to my feet, hobbled over to the sink and found a knife on the draining board. Holding the blade behind my back, I started to saw through the ropes joining my wrists. Soon the knife was slippery with blood as I nicked my flesh in my frantic haste to sever the ropes. Eventually, the fibres parted and I quickly freed my feet, too. The windows were barred, so my only exit was through the door, which I worked out must be tied shut by a rope.

Putting my fingers through a crack in the wooden door, I loosened the rope and tugged at the door - only to realise that someone outside the room was holding it shut. I wrenched it open and saw a woman in a nightshirt standing there. I felt cold, clinical and desperate to escape at all costs. In an Indiana Jones moment, I grabbed her by the neck, slammed her against a wall, pressed my knife to her throat and hissed at her: "Help me, or I will kill you...."

In vain, I waited for a passing car to flag down. I must have waited for about five minutes, but it felt like hours. In the distance I could see a floodlit government building and made my way towards it. I hammered on the perimeter gate which was eventually opened by uniformed guards.

I dived through, imagining that I was finally safe. But I could not have been more wrong.

I explained my plight and the guards seemed sympathetic. They gave me water, helped me wash my wounds and promised to call the British Army to come and rescue me. Relief washed through me as I realised how much pain I was in. I congratulated myself on escaping, and on having such a good story to tell, though I also feared no one would believe it.

Suddenly the guards came rushing back in. The Mahdi army militia fighters loyal to Sadr were at the gate. They told me to hide under the blankets on a bed used by men on the night shift, feigning sleep so that the militia would go away. Ten seconds later, I heard boots charging up the hall. The blanket was ripped off and I found myself looking into the faces of 15 enraged kidnappers. One of the guards must have tipped them off - either that or the woman from the house had told them what had happened........

At that point, I didn’t know that Sadr had appealed for my release at Friday prayers, or that the Foreign Office and The Sunday Telegraph had been working so hard on my behalf. When the end came, I didn’t realise that it had. I thought it was just another episode of driving, kicking, being tied up and held captive. The kidnapper who spoke the best English came to the room and said: ‘‘We are taking you back to your hotel.’’

But in the pick-up, I was still surrounded by armed men. I didn’t dare believe that I was going to be freed. We didn’t go to my hotel, but to Sadr’s district office in Basra. There, I feared, my captivity would continue. I didn’t expect to be pitchforked into a bizarre, televised press conference, surrounded by Iraqi journalists representing global news channels. If I looked bewildered, and somewhat out of my depth, I was. Was this just another piece of staged footage?