‘They hate us here’: Isis hostage John Cantlie’s smuggled final letter

John Cantlie, the photojournalist abducted by the Islamic State, pleaded with western governments to pay a $100 million ransom to secure his release and that of five other hostages in a letter smuggled out of Syria.

Cantlie, the only prisoner to be held by the so-called Isis Beatles gang whose fate remains unknown, told his loved ones that he feared being killed if the money was not forthcoming. His captors were demanding the vast sum because the British and US governments were “the most hated” by the terrorist group.

The letter is among a cache of previously unseen documents and files released by US prosecutors following the conviction on Thursday of El Shafee Elsheikh, the last member of the kidnap and torture gang to face justice.

Cantlie wrote: “The amount is extremely high, but it is the only way the rest of us here will ever be released. If the money is not found we will remain prisoners here until we die, either by natural causes or executions.”

His handwritten plea for help was secretly delivered to his girlfriend in London by Federico Motka, an Italian aid worker who was freed by the Beatles in May 2014, weeks before the group began beheading hostages on camera.

The trove of evidence provides an insight into the brutal conditions endured by western prisoners during their captivity, including images of tiny cells and piles of chains and shackles.

Cantlie, who was born in Winchester and would now be 51, was held in at least eight prisons across Syria with nicknames such as the Box, the Swedish Hotel and the Dungeon.

The files also feature the first images of Elsheikh, 33, and his fellow gang member Alexanda Kotey, 38, being arrested by police at an anti-American demonstration in London years before they achieved notoriety as international terrorists.

It has previously been reported that the four members of the Isis Beatles — who grew up streets away from each other in west London — gave the authorities the slip on at least 14 occasions before embarking on their murderous spree in Syria.

Cantlie managed to avoid the same fate as two other British hostages, the aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines, who were decapitated by Mohammed Emwazi, the masked knifeman known as Jihadi John. Cantlie was last seen alive in an Isis propaganda video recorded in Mosul, Iraq, in December 2016.

A relative latecomer to war reporting, Cantlie had covered the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya before switching his attention to Syria in 2012. In July of that year, he was kidnapped by a group of jihadists, including an NHS hospital doctor, as he and Jeroen Oerlemans, a Dutch photographer, sought to cross the border from Turkey.

Cantlie was shot in the arm during a failed attempt to escape, but the pair were rescued a week later by a unit of the Free Syrian Army.

Unperturbed by the ordeal, Cantlie returned to the country in November 2012 and was captured by extremists for a second time alongside James Foley, an American journalist.

This time he was not so lucky. He and Foley were handed over to a group of sadistic jailers who would eventually take charge of dozens of captured western hostages for Isis. The kidnappers were quickly nicknamed the Beatles by their victims because of their British accents.

Among them was Elsheikh, a Sudanese-born petty criminal from Shepherd’s Bush, west London, who had arrived in Syria in April 2012. Flight records show that he travelled to Turkey via Copenhagen to avoid being detected by police.

Evidence handed to US prosecutors by Scotland Yard reveals that he and Kotey were already well known to the British authorities.

On September 11, 2011 — the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — the pair were filmed by police as they were arrested during a demonstration outside the US embassy in central London. The protest had been organised by the hate preacher Anjem Choudary and led to Islamists clashing with supporters of the far-right English Defence League.

Elsheikh and Kotey were taken into custody and interviewed at a police station in Peckham, southeast London.

Fast-forward a few years and the pair were now at the centre of a terrorist operation — along with Emwazi and Aine Davis, a fourth Londoner — that would make headlines across the world.

On one occasion during their time in captivity, Cantlie and Foley were ordered by the Beatles gang to fight Haines, a former RAF engineer, and Motka, the Italian, for the jihadists’ entertainment. They called the contest the “Royal Rumble” and told the losers they were to be waterboarded.

Mock executions were also carried out, while the captors revelled in changing the lyrics of the Eagles’ hit Hotel California to “Hotel Osama” and making hostages sing the line: “You can never leave”.

During this time, relatives of the hostages were sent ransom demands. One email to Foley’s family stated: “Hello, we have James and we want to negotiate for him. He is safe. He is our friend and we do not want to hurt him.” It ended: “We want money fast.”

In April 2014 Didier François and three other captured French journalists were to be freed after the Paris government appeared to acquiesce to the demands for cash.

Cantlie sensed an opportunity to send direct word to his girlfriend, Charlie, as well as to his parents and sister, Jessica, in the UK.

 “Dearest Charlie and family,” he wrote in capital letters. “The group holding us has just released four French journalists. And Didier François is carrying this letter.

 “The group continues to release prisoners whose countries have paid their ransom demands.

 “For the six British and American prisoners, the group are demanding a total of $100 million.”

Cantlie said another American hostage, Kayla Mueller, could also be freed as part of a prisoner swap involving Aafia Siddiqui, a jailed Pakistani terrorist known as Lady al-Qaeda.

 “The British and American governments are the most hated by this group and therefore they are demanding the most for us,” Cantlie continued.

“The amount is extremely high but it is the only way the rest of us here will ever be released.”

Outlining his concern about pending murders, Cantlie added: “Didier François knows all about the situation here. Liaise with him on the matter.

“We are all so sorry to put you in this very difficult situation. We love all our families and pray you are all holding up in this situation.”

When writing the letter, Cantlie would have known that the British and American governments had a blanket policy against paying ransoms. The Foreign Office was also advising Cantlie’s relatives not to publicise his capture in the media. As it turned out, François was not able to take the letter. It is believed to have been smuggled out of Syria instead by Motka a month later after the Italian government paid what is reported to have been a £5 million ransom.

On August 19, 2014, Cantlie’s worst fears were realised. Isis released a video entitled A Message to America in which a masked Emwazi was seen beheading Foley, 40, in the Syrian desert.

More videos were to follow over the coming weeks, showing the murders of Haines, 44, Henning, 47, and two other Americans, Steven Sotloff, 31, and Peter Kassig, 26. Mueller, 26, an aid worker, was also killed after being offered up to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Isis leader, as a sex slave.

However, the terrorist group seemed to have different plans for Cantlie, who converted to Islam during his captivity. Starting in September 2014, he appeared in a string of propaganda videos from Isis strongholds that were being targeted by coalition airstrikes.

Columns in Dabiq, an English-language online magazine for Isis supporters, also appeared under Cantlie’s name.

Cast as a modern-day Lord Haw-Haw — the American-born fascist who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany during the Second World War — Cantlie was last seen in an Isis video filmed in 2016. There were unconfirmed reports the following year that he had been killed in an airstrike.

As late as February 2019, Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, stated that Cantlie was still believed to be alive. However, he offered no evidence for this claim — and the British hostage has failed to emerge following the collapse of Isis in the Middle East.

Emwazi, 27, was killed by a US drone strike in Syria in 2015. Davis, 38, was jailed in Turkey in 2017 for being a member of a terrorist group. Elsheikh and Kotey were captured by western-backed forces in Syria at the start of 2018 and later transferred to America to face trial on multiple charges of terrorism.

Kotey pleaded guilty last year and will be sentenced on April 29. Elsheikh was convicted of all eight charges linked to hostage-taking and murder last week. He will be sentenced in August. Both men face being jailed for the rest of their lives.