.‘He wept, hands bound. Then I heard two shots’
A HARROWING account of the final hours of the kidnapped British tourist Edwin Dyer before he was murdered by Islamic militants in the Sahara desert last week has been given by an Arab intermediary who was negotiating for his release.
According to the negotiator, the fate of Dyer, 60, an opera-loving sales manager who came from Reading, Berkshire, but lived in Austria, was sealed two days before the killing when his captors separated him at gunpoint from Werner Greiner, 57, a Swiss lawyer they were also holding hostage.
The men’s ordeal had begun in January when they were captured with other tourists from Germany and Switzerland after setting out for a nomadic cultural festival near the lawless border between Niger and Mali.
They are believed to have been sold on to a hardline Islamist group in Mali under Abel Hamid Abu Zeid, 43, an Algerian militant listed by western governments and the United Nations as an Al-Qaeda member.
Informed sources say that after weeks of intensive negotiation, Germany and Switzerland paid a substantial ransom, although they deny it. This apparently led to the release in April of the other tourists, Marianne Pezold, 76, a retired teacher from Germany, and Greiner’s wife Gabriella, 54, a Swiss politician.
Having freed the women, the kidnappers decided to hold on to the two men to extract concessions from western governments. They were aware that accounts by the freed hostages when they came home of how they had to sleep rough in miserable conditions, surviving on a diet of bread and brackish water with no medical supplies and under the constant threat of death, would increase pressure on government officials.
Finally the kidnappers grew tired of waiting, decided to make an example of Dyer, who was unmarried, and killed him.
“They separated Dyer in front of us. I could tell it was a bad sign,” the intermediary said. “Negotiations were deadlocked. Britain was categorical that it would not give in to their demand to release Abu Qatada, the radical cleric who is imprisoned in Britain, in return for Dyer and, above all, it rejected paying ransom money for him.”
The negotiator said that Zeid, the leader of the Islamist group, was particularly hostile towards Britain. “Who are these British?” he asked. “Just western unbelievers. Islam tells us not to have any links with unbelievers. That is why this man [Dyer] will be executed in the name of God.”
Also invoking the name of Allah, the intermediary told Zeid not to kill Dyer. Zeid ignored him, abruptly turning his back and walking away into the sand.
The intermediary, who cannot be named but is a dignitary from northern Mali with substantial influence among local tribes, used a satellite phone to alert the Malian authorities in Bamako, the capital, to Dyer’s imminent execution.
The next day he was summoned back by Zeid, giving him hope that the militant leader had changed his mind. Instead, Zeid became even angrier, warning that henceforth any westerner caught venturing into the Sahara would die.
“They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies,” he said.
Dyer was then reunited briefly with Greiner. “Dyer was wearing a turban. He was very afraid and was sobbing. The Swiss man lowered his head,” he said.
“Dyer knew what awaited him. He said something I did not understand and wept. His hands were bound.
“Zeid told me to leave. As I turned away I heard two gunshots. I do not know whether these shots killed Dyer and they beheaded his corpse afterwards.”
Other sources said Dyer had been beheaded in what Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, called an “appalling and bar-baric act of terrorism”. In a statement announcing Dyer’s death, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (a region of north Africa) quoted a verse from the Koran: “When ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks.”
Although many Europeans have been kidnapped in the Sahara since 2003, murder has been rare. Western security officials will now seek to find out whether Dyer’s killing was a tragic anomaly or more sinister and dangerous. It may indicate a heightened security threat from the increasingly radical Islamist groups operating in the Sahara.
Zeid had indoctrinated the young members of his faction, which called itself the Sahara Mujaheddin, with videos showing the beheading of hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan and hate-filled preaching by radical clerics.
Paradoxically, given the extreme conditions in which his group lives in the desert, they watched the videos on lap-tops and listened to preaching on MP3 players, showing a sophistication they had probably acquired in militant Islamic schools.
Otherwise they were dirt poor, claiming to own nothing but their AK-47 rifles and the clothes on their backs.
One of the most graphic accounts of what it was like to be a prisoner of Zeid’s militants came last week from an Austrian couple, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber, who were held captive between February and October 2008.
“There was constant aware-ness that we would be killed at any instant,” said Ebner, an accountant. “They repeated to us, ‘We will kill you if your governments do not pay,’ and we knew they meant it.”
When the negotiations for their release reached a stalemate, the kidnappers received permission from an Islamic cleric to kill Kloiber as, according to sharia (Islamic law), women, children and old people must not be harmed during a jihad, or holy war.
“We knew then they would not hesitate for a second to execute us. We had to live in a constant fear of death as we were being transferred from one place to another every few days.”
Ebner said he had been abused only once as a punishment for losing his temper. “They made me sit in the sun at noon for two hours at a temperature of over 55C. I almost died then, but I learnt my lesson and did not resist after that.”
Tragically, Dyer had ignored his doctor’s advice that, because he had the flu, he should not travel to the Sahara. Travelling was his hobby and he returned to Africa whenever he could.
He was born in Germany, the son of a British officer and German mother, and obtained degrees in mathematics, German and English. Since 1973 he had lived in Attnang-Puchheim, a sleepy town at the foot of the Austrian Alps where he worked for a plumbing company. “He was a very special gentleman, a very kind and gentle man,” said Alois Gut, his employer and friend.
Britain remained adamant last week that its commitment to confront terrorism remained unshaken by Dyer’s brutal murder.
“It strengthens our determination never to concede to the demands of terrorists, nor to pay ransoms,” Brown said.
Gut, Dyer’s boss, noted that his friend had been offered Austrian citizenship but declined it on “patriotic grounds”.
“He was faithful to the Crown and wished to remain a British citizen although he felt like us and was considered to be one of us. Sadly, it seems he would have had a better chance of surviving the kidnapping had he not had a British passport.”
Additional reporting: Serge Daniel in Mali and Adam Lewitt
Militant brotherhood
Sahara Mujaheddin
Faction of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that held the western tourists. Members aged 14 to 24 said to have been trained in Islamic schools in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger and Mali
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
North African wing of Al-Qaeda, sworn to overthrow Algerian government. Blamed for a series of attacks on Algerian security forces, it has also declared its intention to attack French and American targets. Sought and received recognition from Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Osama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenants, in 2006
Al-Qaeda
Bin Laden’s jihadist group based in border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan whose September 11 attacks in 2001 spawned affiliates in several other parts of the world
TimesOnline
According to the negotiator, the fate of Dyer, 60, an opera-loving sales manager who came from Reading, Berkshire, but lived in Austria, was sealed two days before the killing when his captors separated him at gunpoint from Werner Greiner, 57, a Swiss lawyer they were also holding hostage.
The men’s ordeal had begun in January when they were captured with other tourists from Germany and Switzerland after setting out for a nomadic cultural festival near the lawless border between Niger and Mali.
They are believed to have been sold on to a hardline Islamist group in Mali under Abel Hamid Abu Zeid, 43, an Algerian militant listed by western governments and the United Nations as an Al-Qaeda member.
Informed sources say that after weeks of intensive negotiation, Germany and Switzerland paid a substantial ransom, although they deny it. This apparently led to the release in April of the other tourists, Marianne Pezold, 76, a retired teacher from Germany, and Greiner’s wife Gabriella, 54, a Swiss politician.
Having freed the women, the kidnappers decided to hold on to the two men to extract concessions from western governments. They were aware that accounts by the freed hostages when they came home of how they had to sleep rough in miserable conditions, surviving on a diet of bread and brackish water with no medical supplies and under the constant threat of death, would increase pressure on government officials.
Finally the kidnappers grew tired of waiting, decided to make an example of Dyer, who was unmarried, and killed him.
“They separated Dyer in front of us. I could tell it was a bad sign,” the intermediary said. “Negotiations were deadlocked. Britain was categorical that it would not give in to their demand to release Abu Qatada, the radical cleric who is imprisoned in Britain, in return for Dyer and, above all, it rejected paying ransom money for him.”
The negotiator said that Zeid, the leader of the Islamist group, was particularly hostile towards Britain. “Who are these British?” he asked. “Just western unbelievers. Islam tells us not to have any links with unbelievers. That is why this man [Dyer] will be executed in the name of God.”
Also invoking the name of Allah, the intermediary told Zeid not to kill Dyer. Zeid ignored him, abruptly turning his back and walking away into the sand.
The intermediary, who cannot be named but is a dignitary from northern Mali with substantial influence among local tribes, used a satellite phone to alert the Malian authorities in Bamako, the capital, to Dyer’s imminent execution.
The next day he was summoned back by Zeid, giving him hope that the militant leader had changed his mind. Instead, Zeid became even angrier, warning that henceforth any westerner caught venturing into the Sahara would die.
“They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies,” he said.
Dyer was then reunited briefly with Greiner. “Dyer was wearing a turban. He was very afraid and was sobbing. The Swiss man lowered his head,” he said.
“Dyer knew what awaited him. He said something I did not understand and wept. His hands were bound.
“Zeid told me to leave. As I turned away I heard two gunshots. I do not know whether these shots killed Dyer and they beheaded his corpse afterwards.”
Other sources said Dyer had been beheaded in what Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, called an “appalling and bar-baric act of terrorism”. In a statement announcing Dyer’s death, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (a region of north Africa) quoted a verse from the Koran: “When ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks.”
Although many Europeans have been kidnapped in the Sahara since 2003, murder has been rare. Western security officials will now seek to find out whether Dyer’s killing was a tragic anomaly or more sinister and dangerous. It may indicate a heightened security threat from the increasingly radical Islamist groups operating in the Sahara.
Zeid had indoctrinated the young members of his faction, which called itself the Sahara Mujaheddin, with videos showing the beheading of hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan and hate-filled preaching by radical clerics.
Paradoxically, given the extreme conditions in which his group lives in the desert, they watched the videos on lap-tops and listened to preaching on MP3 players, showing a sophistication they had probably acquired in militant Islamic schools.
Otherwise they were dirt poor, claiming to own nothing but their AK-47 rifles and the clothes on their backs.
One of the most graphic accounts of what it was like to be a prisoner of Zeid’s militants came last week from an Austrian couple, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber, who were held captive between February and October 2008.
“There was constant aware-ness that we would be killed at any instant,” said Ebner, an accountant. “They repeated to us, ‘We will kill you if your governments do not pay,’ and we knew they meant it.”
When the negotiations for their release reached a stalemate, the kidnappers received permission from an Islamic cleric to kill Kloiber as, according to sharia (Islamic law), women, children and old people must not be harmed during a jihad, or holy war.
“We knew then they would not hesitate for a second to execute us. We had to live in a constant fear of death as we were being transferred from one place to another every few days.”
Ebner said he had been abused only once as a punishment for losing his temper. “They made me sit in the sun at noon for two hours at a temperature of over 55C. I almost died then, but I learnt my lesson and did not resist after that.”
Tragically, Dyer had ignored his doctor’s advice that, because he had the flu, he should not travel to the Sahara. Travelling was his hobby and he returned to Africa whenever he could.
He was born in Germany, the son of a British officer and German mother, and obtained degrees in mathematics, German and English. Since 1973 he had lived in Attnang-Puchheim, a sleepy town at the foot of the Austrian Alps where he worked for a plumbing company. “He was a very special gentleman, a very kind and gentle man,” said Alois Gut, his employer and friend.
Britain remained adamant last week that its commitment to confront terrorism remained unshaken by Dyer’s brutal murder.
“It strengthens our determination never to concede to the demands of terrorists, nor to pay ransoms,” Brown said.
Gut, Dyer’s boss, noted that his friend had been offered Austrian citizenship but declined it on “patriotic grounds”.
“He was faithful to the Crown and wished to remain a British citizen although he felt like us and was considered to be one of us. Sadly, it seems he would have had a better chance of surviving the kidnapping had he not had a British passport.”
Additional reporting: Serge Daniel in Mali and Adam Lewitt
Militant brotherhood
Sahara Mujaheddin
Faction of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb that held the western tourists. Members aged 14 to 24 said to have been trained in Islamic schools in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger and Mali
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
North African wing of Al-Qaeda, sworn to overthrow Algerian government. Blamed for a series of attacks on Algerian security forces, it has also declared its intention to attack French and American targets. Sought and received recognition from Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Osama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenants, in 2006
Al-Qaeda
Bin Laden’s jihadist group based in border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan whose September 11 attacks in 2001 spawned affiliates in several other parts of the world
TimesOnline
posted by madtom at 10:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home